


A Kansas City Shuffle

by niniblack



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Con Artist Laurent, FBI Agent Damen, Kid Fic, M/M, Referenced Underage Prostitution, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, referenced CSA, referenced criminal activity, white collar au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:33:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niniblack/pseuds/niniblack
Summary: FBI Agent Damen Akielon spent years chasing Laurent Crawford before finally locking him away for bank robbery. When Laurent escapes just a few months before his sentence is up, it sets off a string of events that Damen never saw coming. Damen catches him again, but now Laurent is out of prison on work release – with Damen as his handler – on the condition that he helps the FBI take down a crime syndicate they’ve been after for years, run by a shadowy figure known only as The Regent. But Damen can tell Laurent is keeping secrets and has an agenda of his own, and Damen is determined to find out what Laurent’s hiding.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Elle for running this show, Lu for cheerleading and beta reading, and to both my artists Rotenkehl and Yankihachi!
> 
> Cover art for this chapter by Yankihachi is [here](http://yankihachi.tumblr.com/post/180690274260/captive-prince-bigbang-2k18-a-kansas-city)!

_In order for a confidence game to be a "Kansas City Shuffle", the mark must be aware that he is involved in a con, but also be wrong about how the con artist is planning to deceive him. The con artist will attempt to misdirect the mark in a way that leaves him with the impression that he has figured out the game and has the knowledge necessary to outsmart the con artist, but by attempting to retaliate, the mark unwittingly performs an action that helps the con artist to further the scheme._

Damen loves his job, for the most part – the long hours and lack of a social life would be impossible to put up with if he didn’t – and this, right here, is definitely one of the reasons why. Closing in on a suspect, getting _this close_ to uncovering a vital piece of evidence that will solve the case, that will slot into the last place and suddenly complete the picture, reveal everything he needs to catch the suspect...

It’s all about the chase.

This particular case has been several years in the making, off and on, and the tip that led them to this bank vault had come at the cost of an undercover alias he’d really been sorry to burn. Worth it though, if the vault reveals the evidence that he’s been promised.

The safecracker is calling out the pins as they drop. “Three… Two… Four…”

Damen frowns. That combination is too low, too close together. The numbers on the lock go to ninety-nine, so why use that sequence? Why not spread them out? There must be some significance, maybe a message or a code...

“Wait!” he yells, right as the safecracker pulls the door open.

There’s a _bang_ and a cloud of thick smoke spills out of the safe, covering the agents in ash and debris. Damen pulls his jacket up over his face, coughing, as he ducks back into the hallway.

“What was that?” someone demands. The air is already clearing as the dust settles, leaving a layer of fine debris on everyone’s clothes.

“I said to _wait_ ,” Damen yells. “Ten thousand man hours and you just blew up my evidence!”

“How did you know it would blow up?” one of the other agents asks.

Damen tries to brush the dust off his coat. “Three two four,” he says. “Look at your phones. What’s it spell?”

Nikandros, who has been on the force nearly as long as Damen, dutifully pulls his phone out of his pocket to look at the keypad. He raises an eyebrow, lips quirked. “FBI. That’s clever.”

Damen glares at him, still angry about losing the evidence. Nikandros shrugs. “It is clever,” he says. “Annoying, but clever.”

Damen’s about to start yelling when Pallas shoves his way through the crowd. He holds out a phone to Damen. "It's Makedon."

"Tell him I'm busy," Damen says. Pallas' slightly panicked look reminds Damen that he’s a probie and he should at least try to be nice to him. Damen sighs and holds out his hand. "Give it here," he tells him, then into the phone, barks, "What?"

Makedon's voice on the line is annoyed. "One day I'm going to fire you for that kind of disrespect."

It's an old line, and Damen responds, "Not today."

Makedon sighs. "No, today I need you to go arrest Laurent Crawford."

Damen's been pacing a bit, a habit he always has while talking on the phone, and stops short at that. He arrested Laurent Crawford four years ago, or nearly that, for a rather impressive variety of crimes – everything from organized crime and racketeering to forgery, counterfeiting, an attempted robbery at the Smithsonian, and suspected prostitution. The only charge they had managed to make stick was burglary, and that only because Laurent had looked straight at the security camera of the bank and winked. When confronted with the footage in the courtroom, Laurent had shrugged, that slight, not-quite-a-smile on his lips, and said, “Oops.”

And they’d only caught him in the first place because Laurent had basically handed himself in, which Damen had never been able to forget.

"I already did that," Damen says. He swears he can hear Makedon roll his eyes.

"Yes," he says. "But he escaped this morning, so I need you to go do it again."

\- - -

When he hears what happened, Damen almost laughs. He manages to keep it to just a smirk, hidden behind his palm, but still gets a glare from the warden. Seeing as the warden is the one who lost Laurent in the first place, Damen’s not terribly concerned with his opinion.

Laurent had seduced a guard into a bathroom, knocked the man over the head with the lid of a toilet tank, and then proceeded to steal his uniform and walk out the front door without anyone noticing until he missed check-in for his shift in the laundry.

Damen is grudgingly impressed. The uniform didn’t even fit Laurent properly – the guard he’d stolen it from must have been the right height, but a good fifty pounds heavier – and yet the grainy image of Laurent in the security footage is carrying the outfit off, and the authority that comes with it, like he wears it everyday.

The warden pulls up the surveillance video of Laurent from earlier that morning. "Inmates are photographed leaving their cell every morning," he explains.

Damen stares at the monitor. Laurent’s hair is long in this image, past his shoulders and unkempt, and he has a scruffy beard. He’s still recognisable since Damen already knows who he's looking at, but he probably wouldn't have guessed otherwise. "When did he become a hippie?" Damen asks. In the footage of him escaping his hair is shorter and he’s clean shaven.

No one has an answer, but Damen actually meant it as a serious question. There must be some reason behind Laurent’s change in appearance, something more than just a ruse for his escape. "Roll back through the footage," Damen tells them.

He pinpoints the day Laurent stopped shaving. It's also the last day he had a visitor.

“This kid is the only visitor Crawford ever had,” the warden says.

“Find the name,” someone else says.

“Don’t bother.” Damen’s eyes are still locked on the screen. “I know who it is.”

_Nicaise Perdue_. He’s older, of course, and even with the black and white video it looks like he’s dyed his hair something bright and unnatural – blue maybe. But the face is the same, minus a bit of baby fat.

"He used to come in every other week," the warden says.

_Why did he stop?_ Damen wonders.

\- - -

Last Damen had heard, four years ago, Nicaise Perdue was living with a nice foster family. What he learns when he gets the ACS file is that Nicaise spent seven months there before being sent to an emergency placement due to _emotional outbursts_ , and then he’d bounced between group homes and foster families that never lasted more than six months at a time. His last address is a group home in Queens, where the supervisor tells Damen that Nicaise ran away months ago.

“Why wasn’t he reported missing?” Damen asks. “There no missing persons report.”

The supervisor crosses her arms. “He’s seventeen and a runaway. I told his case worker and the police. Not up to me what they do about it.” Her deep frown shifts into something mildly curious. “What’s the FBI want with him anyway?”

“He’s a witness,” Damen says, not wanting to let on anything about Nicaise’s past that this woman doesn’t already know. He leaves her with a card, and directions to contact him if she hears anything.

Pallas is waiting by the car out front. “Learn anything?” Damen asks. He’d sent Pallas to talk with the other kids living at the home while he dealt with the adults, and is hoping that Pallas had better luck.

“One of the boys says that Nicaise was bragging about having an apartment in SoHo,” Pallas tells him.

“How’d he manage that?”

Pallas shrugs. “He claimed he’d actually been there once, so it was legit, and apparently Nicaise has pissed him off because he was willing to give up the address.” He holds up a slip of paper.

Jackpot.

\- - -

Damen finds Laurent in SoHo.

"You could at least make this a challenge," Damen comments, making his way across the detritus of the hastily abandoned apartment. It almost looks artistic, with shafts of late evening sunlight streaming in through the bare windows and catching on motes of dust in the air. Laurent is sitting on the floor, back to the wall, fiddling with something in his hands. It’s not a weapon, so Damen doesn’t pull his gun.

Laurent looks up at him. "Sorry, I'll try harder next time."

"There won't be a next time," Damen says.

"Done coming after me?"

"I wouldn't have to chase you if you stayed where you were supposed to."

Laurent grins. "Where's the fun in that?"

"They're going to put you in maximum security for another four years after this stunt."

Laurent looks away, but his shrug is overly casual. "I know." He holds out a palm, and there’s a small origami crane resting on it.

“What’s with the bird?”

“Nicaise’s way of saying goodbye.”

“Hell of a kid,” Damen says. “You basically turn yourself in to keep him out of juvie, we set him up with a nice foster family, and he visits you in prison to tell you to fuck off then runs before you can escape and catch up to him.”

“You finally admit that I turned myself in then?” Laurent looks up at him, head tilting to the side. The sunlight catches his hair and makes it look even brighter than usual, but the ends are jagged from whatever he’d found to cut it with before escaping prison. He smirks.

Damen shakes his head. “What is it about this kid? What makes him worth another four years behind bars?”

Laurent pushes himself to his feet. “He grows on you.” He frowns. “Is that the same suit you were wearing last time you arrested me?”

Damen looks down at the suit; it is a couple years old, so it might be, come to think of it. “Maybe.” He’s wasted enough time chatting, he thinks, pulling out his radio and letting the others know that the room is secure and Laurent’s inside.

“How many are there?” Laurent asks.

"Counting my team and the marshals? All of them.”

“All for little ol’ me?” Laurent says, expression innocent.

“Well, I remember that time you parachuted off a building,” Damen says.

Laurent grins. “Allegedly.” He reaches over and tucks the origami crane into Damen’s jacket pocket, patting his hand against Damen’s chest before stepping back.

Damen raises an eyebrow at him.

“To say goodbye,” Laurent tells him.

There are heavy footfalls as the rest of the officers make their way inside, and Damen steps back to let them slap the cuffs on and made the actual arrest. Then Laurent is dragged out of the room and towards the waiting wagon, someone mirandizing him in a dull tone. Damen watches them go, and tells himself he isn’t disappointed that Laurent doesn’t look back.

\- - -

The paperwork generated by Laurent’s arrest takes forever, and means that he’s running late leaving work, which also means that he’s going to be late picking Theo up from Jokaste. Damen gets two nights a week and every other weekend with him.

When he gets to Jokaste’s apartment, she’s wearing that pursed lip expression that means she’s annoyed but trying to hide it and failing miserably. “You’re late,” she says.

“Work ran late,” Damen says, not offering a further explanation. He pushes past her into the apartment, and finds Theo sitting on the couch, watching a cartoon on television. “Hey buddy! Ready to go?”

Theo waves a hand at him to shush him. “They’re singing,” he says.

Damen looks at the TV. He’s seen _Frozen_ enough times to recognize it based on any five second clip now, and apparently he’s walked in during the middle of Elsa’s rendition of _Let It Go_.

Jokaste pauses the movie, and says over Theo’s protests, “You can finish watching it when you get to Daddy’s.”

“I want to watch it now,” Theo whines, kicking his feet against the couch.

“C’mon bud, let’s go get dinner and then we can finish it when we get home,” Damen says.

Theo grumbles, but climbs off the couch and heads to his room to grab his backpack.

Damen raises an eyebrow at Jokaste as soon as he’s out of earshot.

She shrugs one shoulder. “He had a fight with one of his friends. He won’t tell me what it was about.”

“Which friend?”

“I don’t know, Damen,” she says, turning away from him and moving around the living room, beginning to tidy up. “He’s five, I’m sure he’ll be over it by tomorrow.”

Theo reappears before Damen can ask anything else, backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Got everything?” Damen asks.

Theo nods.

“Okay, say bye to Mom.”

Jokaste kneels down to accept a hug from Theo, and tells him she’ll see him after school on Monday. “Have fun at your Dad’s.”

Theo is still unusually subdued after Damen gets him strapped into the car. “How about pizza for dinner?” Damen offers, glancing at him in the rear view mirror. It’s Theo’s favorite.

Theo shrugs, looking out the window.

“So, Mom said you had a fight with one your friends. Want to tell me about it?”

“No,” Theo says, crossing his arms.

“Was it Abby?” Damen asks, trying one of the names of a kid that he thinks he had to buy a birthday present for once.

“No, it was Max. He’s an _asshole_.”

Damen just stops himself from hitting the brakes on the car. “Who taught you that word?” he demands.

In the mirror, Damen can see Theo raising his little chin defiantly. “I’m not a baby. I know what it means.”

“I’m sure you do, since you just used it correctly in a sentence, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Mom was talking to Grandma on the phone and she said Uncle Kastor is an asshole.”

_Oh_ , Damen thinks. Well, that’s not wrong, but he can’t have his five-year-old running around cursing. “That’s not a nice word.”

“Is Uncle Kastor an asshole?”

“Uh… That really depends on your point of view,” Damen says. _Yes_ , he thinks. His older brother Kastor, with whom Jokaste had cheated on him, and who had then cheated on Jokaste a year later, was the very definition of an asshole.

“Is that why he left Christmas early?”

No, that was because Kastor and Damen had gotten into a fight about how to manage the trust account their father had left to them. “Not exactly,” Damen says. “What happened with Max?” he asks, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

“He said Spider-Man was stupid cos he’s in high school and has to hide his real identity but I told him that’s the whole point of Spider-Man, he doesn’t take credit for saving people he just does it cos it’s the right thing to do, like you catching bad guys. And then he grabbed my Spider-Man and tried to rip his head off so I hit him but Mrs. Archer only got me in trouble and made me miss recess. Max didn’t get in trouble at all even though _he_ started it!”

Damen takes a moment to process that. “Okay, well, I can call and talk to Mrs. Archer Monday. Let her know Max started it.”

“Don’t bother,” Theo says, with a deep sigh and crossed arms. He’s gazing out the window, expression forlorn. Damen wonders if he picked up the penchant for drama from his mother.

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t like me.”

Over pizza, Theo tells Damen all about how Mrs. Archer, his preschool teacher, has it out for him. She has apparently done everything from telling him he shouldn’t be coloring during story time and taking his crayons away to never listening to his side of the story and always making him sit in time-out during recess.

“And none of it is _my_ fault,” Theo says, mouth full of pizza. “She’s just really mean!”

“I’ll call and talk to her on Monday, okay?” Damen tells him. “Don’t worry, we’ll sort it out.” Damen’s also going to have to call Jokaste and ask why she hadn’t told him any of this was going on, but that was a different matter.

Ranting about his teacher is apparently enough to get Theo out of his funk, because he starts asking Damen for money to go put in the arcade machine that lives in the back corner of the pizza shop.

“Okay, okay. Hang on,” Damen says, digging his wallet out. When he tugs out a dollar bill, the origami crane that Laurent had given him earlier falls out as well. Theo manages to catch it before it hits the floor.

“What’s this?” He turns the crane over in his hands, looking at it.

“Something from a case,” Damen says, trading him the dollar for the crane. “Go on.”

Theo heads towards the machine, and Damen keeps one eye on him as he looks over the crane again. He hadn’t looked at it too closely before tucking it into his wallet earlier. It’s made out of a thin yellow paper with writing on it, the kind that came from a pad that made copies, and after picking at the folds and smoothing it out it reveals itself as a receipt from a pawn shop on 14th Street.

It meant goodbye, Laurent had said.

A goodbye in the form of a pair of earrings worth $7,500.


	2. Chapter 2

He shows the pawn slip to Nikandros after he gets into the office on Monday.

Nikandros does that thing where his expression doesn’t change, but Damen can feel the waves of judgement coming off him. “You didn’t log it into evidence?” he asks.

The ticket is made out to a Sebastian Smith, and the address listed is the same as the apartment they’d found Laurent in. The description just says  _ earrings _ , nothing else.

“Forgot all about it,” Damen says. “This isn’t one of his aliases.”

“Those must be some earrings,” Nikandros says. He leans back, looking at Damen. “You know the case against Crawford is closed, right? He’s being sentenced next week.”

Damen folds the ticket back up and slips it into his wallet. “It doesn’t hurt to close up loose ends,” he says.

\- - -

The earrings turn out to be stolen, of course. They’re clusters of dangling, glittering sapphires and diamonds, set in platinum, worth a few thousand more than the pawn shop had paid for them and reported stolen from a hotel room at the Park Hyatt… a decade ago. Damen wouldn’t believe they were the same earrings if not for the photo in the police report being an exact match for the set he found at the pawn shop. It’s not the match he was expecting when he’d run a search for stolen sapphire earrings, and it raises more questions that it answers.

The description the pawnbroker gave of Sebastian Smith is a match for Nicaise Perdue, minus the blue hair from the prison surveillance footage. Evidently Nicaise has opted to go back to his natural brunette. Finding out he’s the one who pawned them isn’t a surprise, at least.

The police report for the stolen earrings was filed by a man named Matthew Govart, and a quick search turns up a long list of prior charges on him for everything from breaking and entering to solicitation, but not a single conviction.

Damen finds himself back at the prison in search of answers, waiting in a visiting room for Laurnt Crawford to be brought in. As he waits, he flips the evidence bag with the earrings between his hands, frowning thoughtfully. Laurent is a thief, plain and simple. He was convicted and sent to prison for breaking into a bank to rob the safety deposit boxes while Nicaise Perdue acted as a distraction and look-out (whatever he’d stolen from the safety deposit boxes that day had never been recovered, which was why he’d only been convicted of burglary and not theft). Damen has no doubt that ten years ago, a sixteen-year-old Laurent probably stole these earrings from Matthew Govart at the Park Hyatt, and held on to them long enough that they eventually wound up in Nicaise’s hands. The question is  _ why _ . By all accounts Govart has the appearance of a career henchman for someone much more powerful who always buys his way out of any consequences. Someone without any aversion to violent crime either, based on the rap sheet Govart has avoided. Laurent had always made a point of avoiding the seedier side of things. Around the office he’d been known as Damen’s “gentleman thief”, seeming to be in it for the thrill of the con and known for avoiding weapons. Govart is the type that Laurent always looked down on. So how had they crossed paths? And who was Govart’s benefactor?

Damen’s jerked out of his musing by the door swinging open with a squeak of the hinges.

“Agent Akielon,” Laurent says, standing by the door as the guard removes his cuffs. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

Damen waits for Laurent to sit down at the table, the only furniture in the room, before sitting across from him and tossing the evidence bag containing the earrings onto the table. “It’s not a social call. What can you tell me about these?”

Laurent reaches for the evidence bag, holding it up to the light. “They’re small, but each one has… what? Seven carats? Not counting the diamonds.”

Seven point five, but Damen isn’t going to tell him how close he is. “I meant more like where they came from.”

Laurent sets the bag down. “I don’t know why you think I can help.”

“Nicaise pawned them off, and left the ticket for you. I know they were stolen.”

Laurent leans back in his chair a bit. “I think you’ll find I have an excellent alibi,” he says, gesturing around the room.

“For ten years ago, when they were first stolen?”

Laurent’s brows furrow briefly, but smooth out again quickly. Damen only catches it because he’s watching Laurent’s face for the slightest twitch.

Laurent leans forward. “You didn’t really come here to talk about earrings.”

“Oh?” Damen asks, playing along for a moment. Because he’s pretty sure that he did, actually.

“No,” Laurent says. He smirks at Damen. “You’re here because you need my help.”

“With the earrings, yes.” Damen had forgotten how infuriating talking to Laurent can be.

“With your current case,” Laurent corrects him. And before Damen, frowning, can say anything he adds, “The man you call the Regent.”

Damen stills. The Regent is a nickname Pallas came up with that has somehow stuck. A shadowy figure in political circles that’s been fingered as the source of a number of bribes and backroom deals. There are rumors about extortion and tax fraud as well. Damen has been working on the Regent case for a couple years now and never gotten closer than the vault that blew up the morning Laurent had escaped from prison. He’d been hoping to undercover some of the evidence his informant had claimed were stored there, but the only thing left had been unidentifiable dust.

He knows he’s never said a word to Laurent about the Regent. It’s a department nickname for the case. He can’t think of anywhere Laurent would have heard it before.

“I can help you catch him,” Laurent continues.

“Going to mail me postcards with tips on them from prison?” Damen asks.

Laurent’s smile is almost genuine. “Better,” he says. “You’re going to get me out on work release.”

Damen laughs. “And how do you know anything about him? You’ve been in prison for the past four years. And even before that, this wasn’t your type of operation.” He shakes his head. “No, I don’t know how you even heard about him, but you can’t help with this.” Damen pushes himself to his feet, fists on the table. “I should have known you’d be no help with anything I actually need in the first place. I’m trying to find Nicaise, you know. I thought you would care about that, at least.” He reaches for the bag with the earrings, tucking it back into his jacket pocket.

Laurent reaches out and grabs Damen’s wrist. “He’s hiding behind a shell company. Chastillion Imports. I could get you in. And they’ve got new GPS tracking anklets, never been skipped on.”

Damen pulls his hand away. “I’m not letting you out of prison, Laurent.”

Laurent sinks back into his seat. This time Damen is the one who doesn’t look back as he signals the guard at the door to let him out.

\- - -

The tip about Chastillion Imports checks out. The company is registered in Delaware, and is definitely a shell. The most Damen can find out when he calls up the law firm who registered it is that their client values confidentiality. Digging into it further turns up the company name on a shipping manifest out of the Bahamas. He checks into the crew, and the same Matthew Govart from the stolen earring report is listed as a passenger.

“How does Laurent Crawford fit into this?” Nikandros asks, looking at the papers Damen has strewn across the table in the conference room.

Damen rakes a hand through his hair, fingers digging into his scalp to try and stave on the headache that’s building. “I honestly don’t know. Govart and Nicaise are the only things connecting any of this right now, and none of it links back to the Regent.”

“Except for Crawford telling you the Regent was involved in Chastillion.”

“Except for that. And the fact that it makes  _ sense _ .” The Regent using a shell corporation to smuggle goods or cash in and out of the country fits into what they know of his operation so far. They’re not sure how he’s obtaining the illegal funds, but they know he’s using them as bribes in Washington and that he’s nominally based in New York, which is how it landed in Damen’s lap in the first place. Laurent’s lead was a good one. If he has more, then Damen can’t just ignore him. He’s going to have to find out just how much Laurent knows.

Nikandros is quiet for a long moment. “You’re gonna have to give him something to get him to talk.”

\- - -

Damen is going to regret this. He regrets a lot of things in life – from believing Jokaste the first time she said there was nothing going on with Kastor, to the breakfast burrito he bought at a questionable food truck this morning – but he has a feeling that arranging work-release for Laurent Crawford is going to bite him in the ass sooner rather than later. Makedon had only signed off on it because they were, quite frankly, desperate for a lead on the Regent.

Laurent has one of the widest smiles Damen has ever seen when he steps out of the prison gate. He waves cheerily to the guards as he walks past them. One of them waves back. 

Damen sighs. Yep, regret.

"Let me see it," Damen says, as Laurent approaches.

Laurent lifts a pant leg and shows off the GPS tracker they've put on him. It's smooth and black with no discernible seam and only a tiny slot for the key, along with a row of blinking lights. "Not that this isn’t lovely, but if you're going to get me anymore jewelry you should know that I prefer sapphires," Laurent says. “They bring out the color of my eyes.”

“You mean like those stolen earrings?”

“Maybe a bit less ostentatious than those.”

Damen rolls his eyes and reminds himself not to react, since that’s exactly what Laurent wants. "Just... get in the car."

"Where are we going?" Laurent asks. He's practically bouncing as he slides into the passenger seat.

"Your new home," Damen says.

Laurent’s new home is a rundown hotel building that at least is adjacent to a decent neighborhood. He stares around the lobby, taking in the faded wallpaper, moldy carpets, and crack addict sitting on the floor under a payphone. It could be worse, Damen decides. It could be a ten foot square cell in a maximum security prison.

Laurent doesn't seem to agree. He takes the key Damen dangles in front of him, but begs, "Please don't leave me here."

"You'll be fine," Damen says.

"A cockroach just ran over my foot," Laurent says, eyes wide. He’s looking at the floor like he’s afraid something is going to leap up and bite him.

"Look," Damen says. "It costs seven hundred dollars to house you inside, so that's how much you get here. If you can find something better for that much, go for it.”

Laurent is mouthing ‘seven hundred dollars' to himself incredulously. "Does that include an allowance? I need new clothes; this is all I have." He gestures to the clothes the prison had provided when he was released, which have seen better days.

Damen ignores the question. "You've got a two mile radius from this location. Two miles  _ exactly _ . If you step outside that radius I will know, because your anklet will go off, and then I will come arrest you for a third time and you will never get out of prison  _ ever _ again. Are we clear?" Damen stares him down. He’s never really seen Laurent take anything seriously before and Damen is very serious about this. The work-release is only temporary, contingent on Laurent helping them to find the Regent. Any attempts to violate the terms will land him back in prison for much longer than the four additional years he’s already facing.

Laurent meets his gaze for a long moment before breaking eye contact and swallowing hard. "Crystal," he says.

"Good." Damen leads him back out the car and digs a large folder out of his bag. "This is everything we have on the Regent right now. Read it. I'll be back to pick you up in the morning at seven o'clock." He shoves the files into Laurent’s waiting arms, then gets into the car.

Laurent taps on the window, so Damen rolls it down. "What about clothes and food?” Laurent asks. “I don’t have–"

"You're resourceful. I'm sure you'll figure it out," Damen tells him. He rolls the window up before Laurent can ask him for more freebies or complain about the deal he had practically begged for. Damen needs his help to find the Regent, but he has no plans to make this easy for him. Not when he should be in prison instead of standing outside on the sidewalk in Manhattan.

Damen glances in the mirror as he drives away. Laurent is standing on the curb, files clutched to his chest, watching him go.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Damen arrives at the hotel, eager to get started on a new lead that came through the tip-line overnight, and discovers that Laurent has left him a note at the front desk. It says, _Dear Damen, I have moved 1.6 miles to 351 Riverside Drive. XOXO Laurent._

Damen takes a deep breath and counts to ten, then turns around and heads back out to his car.

351 Riverside Drive is not an apartment building, or a brownstone, or even a house. It is a mansion. The door is opened by a maid who leads Damen inside to what must be a sitting room or parlor – this house has _parlors_ – and the butler who greets him is stoic. “You must be looking for Laurent. He’s upstairs.”

He finds Laurent sitting on a rooftop patio with the morning paper, working on the crossword. Damen takes in the stunning view, the stone balustrades, the marble tiles, the elegant wrought iron furniture, and the china breakfast setting. Laurent looks perfectly at home, surrounded by these trappings of wealth. And why shouldn’t he, when he’s always been so skilled at obtaining them, however illegally he did so? Laurent is concentrating on his crossword and hasn’t noticed Damen approaching, so he interrupts by asking, "What is this place?”

Laurent's head jerks up, startled, then he smiles. "Damen! You found it. I was worried I should have drawn a map, but then again I’m sure you know your way around the city very well.”

"Uh huh," Damen says.

"It's nice, right? Better than that motel. I haven’t seen a single cockroach since I moved in. Granted that was just last night but Torveld seems to keep a very tidy home."

“Torveld?”

“This is his house,” Laurent explains.

"How did you..." Damen isn't quite sure where to begin.

"You told me if I found something better for seven hundred I should take it," Laurent reminds him. If Damen didn’t know for a fact that Laurent had no sense of shame, he’d almost think his expression was nervous.

"I did, didn't I," Damen mutters, feeling a bit dumbfounded by the whole thing. This is reminding him of the time they'd been camped outside one of Laurent’s safe houses – halfway through a week of surveillance and living on gas station burritos and coffee – when a delivery boy had shown up with pizza and beer. Laurent had written Damen's name on the box of supreme pizza, Damen’s favorite, and drawn a heart around it. Damen knows it was him because he’d had the handwriting analyzed. It’s that feeling of knowing he's been had, and being able to see exactly how it happened and how he could have prevented it, but being unable to do a damned thing about it. "There's no way this only costs seven hundred dollars."

"Torveld is very generous," Laurent says, his voice earnest as he adds, "But I help out, earn my keep."

"Really?" Damen asks skeptically.

Laurent nods. "I clean up around the place, wash the Jag, walk the dog..."

“I haven’t seen a dog,” Damen says.

“Well, if he had one I would walk it.”

“Ah, thank you for the sentiment, Laurent,” a man who must be Torveld says, striding gracefully across the balcony. Damen hadn’t even heard him approaching. He’s middle-aged, and Damen supposes he’s mildly attractive, with dark, greying hair and a trim goatee. He smiles indulgently at Laurent as he sits down, pouring himself a cup of espresso. “I’ll be sure to take you up on that, should I ever get one.”

Damen watches them for a moment, before waving a hand towards the door. “Go get dressed,” he tells Laurent. “We’ve got a new lead we need to get started on.”

Laurent leans forward, expression lighting up like Damen’s brought him a gift instead of work. “Oh, what is it?”

“We have someone who claims they have information to turn over,” Damen says.

“Against Govart?” Laurent asks.

Damen frowns. “No, against the Regent,” he says. “The case you were released to assist with. The case that’s successful closure determines if this–” he gestures around them, at the fancy table setting and fantastic view, “–is permanent or if you go back to a cell for four years.” Laurent doesn’t say anything, so Damen asks, “Is there something about Govart you think I should look into?”

“A two-bit earring thief?” Laurent says.

“Govart is the one the earrings were stolen from, not the one who stole them.”

“Right, of course,” Laurent says. “It sounds like he’s not worth our time. Like you said, we’re after the Regent.”

Damen tries to stare him down, but Laurent’s expression remains utterly guileless.

“I’ll just go get ready,” Laurent says, heading inside. “Wouldn’t want to make you late.”

“You do that,” Damen tells him.

Damen takes the seat Laurent vacated. Toveld tilts his head at him, smiling serenely, before offering a cup of coffee. "You know that's not jewelry he's wearing on his ankle, right?" Damen asks Torveld, once Laurent is out of earshot. "He's a criminal.”

Torveld leans forward, like he’s divulging a secret. “Oh, I know. But we all do what we must to survive.” He takes a sip of his coffee, and after setting it down gestures towards the door Laurent had disappeared through. “This guest apartment has gone unused for far too long. Laurent is a very bright boy, as I’m sure you know. I’m just trying to help him out, set him on a better path.”

Damen frowns, not entirely liking the way Torveld called Laurent a boy. His mind skips back to the way Laurent had seduced the guard during his prison escape a few weeks ago, and even further back to a witness they’d once had who claimed that Laurent couldn’t possibly have robbed his gallery, because Laurent was his boyfriend. “He’s also still a ward of federal prison system. For the next four years he’s under my protection.”

“I’m sure he’ll be very safe then,” Torveld says, still smiling slightly.

Damen looks away, rather than return the smile.

\- - -

Laurent turns back up in a suit, perfectly tailored and extremely fashionable, complete with a fedora. His hair has been fixed too, Damen notices now that he’s looking him over, trimmed into more of a style than the haphazard hacking Laurent had done to it himself.

“What, did Torveld pretty woman you up?” he finds himself asking, once they’re in the car and making their way through traffic.

Laurent turns to him, distracted from looking over the radio controls. “What?”

Damen gestures at Laurent’s… _everything_. “That suit wasn’t in your budget. And you’ve had your hair done.”

Laurent starts to raise a hand toward his hair but then drops it. “You noticed my hair?” he asks curiously.

“That’s not really the point.”

“I think it is.”

“What did you do to get Torveld to pay for all of this?” Damen demands. They’re stopped at a light and traffic is awful so they aren’t going anywhere soon. He turns to look at Laurent as he waits for an answer.

“What do you mean?” Laurent asks.

Damen lets out his next breath in a huff of frustration. Laurent always plays this innocent card, like he couldn’t possibly be guilty because he’s batted his lashes and smiled and swears he doesn’t even know what crime _is,_ officer. But it’s all part of the act, and Damen is sick of it. He just wants a straight answer for once. “Did you fuck him? Do I need to arrest you for prostitution now? _Any_ crime you commit while you’re out on probation will get you sent back for life. Do you understand that? You’re fucking everything up right now, and for what? A nice view and a new suit?”

Laurent’s expression had turned hard as soon as Damen said the word _prostitution_. “Is that all you think of me?”

“What?”

“Whether or not I’m sleeping with Torveld isn’t any of your business–“

“Yes, it is!”

“And even if it was,” Laurent goes on, voice hard as ice, “what gives you the right to judge me for it? I haven’t broken any of your precious _laws_ and you know what, sometimes people are just _nice_ to other people. I’m sorry you’ve been a cop so long that you’re too jaded to allow for that in your world view, but that’s all that’s happening here. Toveld is _nice_. He doesn’t want anything from me in exchange for being nice, unlike _you_.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Damen demands.

Laurent looks like he’s about to respond, but someone behind them starts honking. Damen snaps his head around to see that the light is green now. The cabby behind him is waving his arm out the window.

Damen hits the gas a bit too hard and the car jerks forward, speeding ahead into the intersection before he has to slam the brakes again because traffic is stalled at the next light.

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Laurent asks, voice a bit higher than usual.

“No commentary from convicted felons without a driver’s license,” Damen says.

“I’ll take a cab next time,” Laurent says. “Or wait, is that outside my budget too? Do I need to clear all expenses with you? Are you my pimp in this situation?” He twists in his seat, leaning his back against the door and sprawling in a way that spreads his legs obscenely wide. He bats his eyelashes at Damen. “Sorry daddy,” he says, voice saccharine.

Damen tightens his grip on the steering wheel for a moment before consciously relaxing his hold. Not even fifteen minutes into day one and it’s already going downhill. Makedon is going to kill him if he wastes this opportunity to find out whatever it is Laurent knows about the Regent. He takes a deep breath; in and out through his nose.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Damen says, tone the same measured one he uses when explaining complex things to Theo.

Laurent shimmies around until he’s sitting forward again. “No, you shouldn’t have,” he says, adjusting his seat belt.

“I just...“ Damen frowns, navigating through another intersection. “I’m looking out for you.”

“Mmhmm,” Laurent hums, gaze locked out the window.

“While you’re a CI, I’m responsible for you,” Damen goes on.

“You were happy to leave me in a bug infested motel with no clothes, no food, and no cash last night,” Laurent says. “So I’d rather not hear about how concerned you are now that I’ve made the best of the situation.”

Damen wants to keep arguing, but Laurent’s not wrong. And if he’s being honest he knew that Laurent would do something like this as soon as he drove away yesterday. He knows Laurent. He spent years chasing him around the world. The first time he’d seen him, Laurent had been robbing a hotel vault of all their jewels. It had been a small take, and from there each heist had gotten bigger and bolder than the last. Laurent went for bigger takes, bigger publicity, bigger challenges. Damen leaving him behind yesterday had just been another challenge. Laurent was never going to do as he was told, not without steel bars and twenty-four seven guards forcing him to, and Damen had known that all along.

\- - -

They’re meeting the informant in Central Park, by Strawberry Fields. It takes forever to find parking and they wind up further away than Damen had been hoping. Laurent trails behind Damen, hands in his pockets and looking up at the trees and sky rather than paying attention to their surroundings. Damen has to stop and tell him to keep up.

“It’s spring,” Laurent tells him. “You should appreciate nature more.”

“I’ll appreciate it after we find this guy,” Damen says.

“What’s he look like?”

Damen waves the question off. The man he’d spoken to on the phone hadn’t given much of a description, other than to say _don’t worry, you’ll recognize me_ and _I’m a redhead; natural, not fake!_ So Damen is on the lookout for distinctive redheads who look like they might somehow be involved with corrupt politicians.

Damen spots him on a park bench, red hair – nearly orange, really – half covered by an artfully tied silk scarf and face mostly hidden by large, round sunglasses. He’s wearing leggings and an oversized sweater that slips off one shoulder.

“There he is,” Damen says, taking hold of Laurent’s wrist to drag him forward.

Laurent lets himself be dragged a few steps before shaking Damen’s hold off. “How do you know?”

“He looks exactly like he sounded on the phone.”

Laurent raises an eyebrow, but Damen is sure he’s right about this and approaches the man confidently.

“Satine?” Damen asks, using the code name the man had given over the phone.

The man looks up. He raises a hand and drops the sunglasses down his nose to reveal green eyes. His eyes rake Damen from head to foot, critically. “Well, _you’re_ obviously a cop,” he says. He looks at Laurent. “Who are you?”

“Not a cop,” Laurent says.

“Hmph,” the man says, recrossing his legs. “You didn’t say there would be two of you.”

“This is my… consultant,” Damen says, hesitating for just a moment about how to introduce Laurent.

The man – Satine, for lack of a better name – squints at Laurent, but then dismisses him. “Whatever. Let’s get out of here. Too crowded.”

There are only a few tourists and one busker this early, but Damen and Laurent follow Satine as he stands and heads further into the park.

Laurent leans in close enough that his breath is a warm gust against Damen’s neck as he whispers, “His name isn’t really ‘Satine.’”

“Obviously,” Damen mutters back.

Satine glances back at them, walking backward for a few steps. “Does he always give off this much of a…” He waves a hand a Damen, wrist twirling and lips twisted into a frown. “Vibe?” he finishes with.

“Yes,” Laurent answers. “He’s been wearing the same suit for at least six years.”

Damen is about to respond – it’s been four years, he’s pretty sure – but Satine heaves a dramatic sigh and falls into step between Damen and Laurent. “That’s just like my Bear– Barry.”

“Barry?” Damen asks.

Satine doesn’t respond, walking a bit faster.

“You know,” Laurent says, tone careful, as he and Damen increase their own pace to keep up, “we can help a lot more if we know _who_ we’re supposed to be helping.” Which is surprisingly insightful, and not something Damen expected from him on his first day.

Satine eyes Laurent out of the corner of his eye. “And how do I know you won’t just arrest him?”

“Why don’t you tell me why you called?” Damen tries. “We can start there. You don’t have to give any names yet.” He can usually find names later, and Satine has already slipped up telling them _Bear_ or _Barry_.

Satine turns away as they approach a crosswalk, pushing the button and not looking at Damen. “I probably shouldn’t have called, really,” he says, fiddling with the sleeve of his sweater.

Laurent crosses his arms, looking down the road at the oncoming carriages. “Well not if you’re not going to talk, no.”

Satine glares at him. “You have no idea who you’re up against. You don’t know what he could do.”

Laurent huffs out a laugh, but doesn’t say anything.

“He’s very powerful,” Satine insists.

“Uh huh,” Laurent says. The light turns, and he starts walking. A biker ignores the signal and cuts in front of him – Laurent steps back with a muttered curse. “Are you sure you didn’t just piss off your pimp and call us because you were scared of what he’d do to you?” he tosses over his shoulder.

Satine follows after him, Damen close on their heels. “I don’t have a _pimp_ ,” Satine hisses the last word like a curse. “Honestly, where have you even been? No one does that anymore. I have a blog.”

Laurent stops walking and turns to look at him. “A blog,” he says.

“With a webcam,” Satine says, like this should be obvious.

“You’re a camboy?” Damen asks.

“That’s only one part of my business,” Satine says.

“And the other part involves…?” Laurent raises an eyebrow.

Satine draws his shoulders back. “I may have arranged some private business meetings.”

“Is that what they call it now?” Laurent asks.

Satine glares at him.

Damen steps between them, shooting a warning look at Laurent before turning to Satine. “Look, we’re not interested in how you earn money. Illegal, legal, whatever it is. You said you had information about a corrupt senator, and that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.”

Satine looks away. “He’s not– Well, Barry _is_ but…”

“Why don’t you tell me the name of the senator you called about,” Damen says, keeping his voice calm and level.

Satine looks around, but there’s no one near them. They’ve wandered into a fairly remote part of the park. “He’s not a senator, he’s a lobbyist. Laurent-Martin de Vere.”

Damen can’t help his glance towards Laurent at the similar first name, but Laurent doesn’t seem to react to it. Damen turns back to Satine, asking, “And what can you tell me about him?”

“He’s…” Satine shakes his head. “Corrupt. Like I said on the phone.”

Laurent starts to say something but Damen holds up a hand, and he falls silent. “You have some sort of proof?” Damen asks.

Satine bites at his lower lip. “He’s threatened Barry. He _is_ a senator – I’m not going to tell you which state! – and de Vere is trying to push through this bill for…” Satine frowns. “I don’t know exactly. Something to do with the next election. Or maybe it was taxes?” He trails off thoughtfully.

“Anyway!” Satine continues. “Barry was going to vote no. Because this bill is really bad. He actually cares about people, you know? He’s the real deal. He goes out there and he shakes hands and he kisses babies and he doesn't even care when they slobber all over his jackets. Not that they're nice jackets anyway – he has like six of the same brown jackets, it's ridiculous – but anyway, de Vere said he had proof that Be– that Barry had paid me, and that it was on video, and that he’d publish it if he didn’t vote for this bill.”

Damen takes a moment to absorb that, then says, “I’m going to have to talk to Barry.”

“You can’t!”

“He’s going to have to confirm all of this,” Damen tries to say, but Satine is already talking over him.

“If de Vere thinks that either of us talked to the FBI he won’t just tell people he paid for sex, he’ll arrange one his _accidents_ for him!”

“Accidents?” Damen asks.

But Satine clams up, claiming he’s already said too much, and won’t give them a real name for either himself or Barry. He eventually walks away from them along on Fifth Avenue. Damen gets him to take a card with his cell number scribbled on the back, but Satine doesn’t even glance at it before shoving it into a pocket.

“Well, we did get one name,” Damen says, as he and Laurent stand on the sidewalk.

“Berenger Marron,” Laurent says.

“No, de Vere.” Damen frowns. “Who’s Berenger Marron?”

“The ‘Barry’ he kept mentioning. Junior senator from New York.”

“Keep up on politics a lot while in prison, did you?” Damen asks. “You know you can’t vote.”

“It’s an academic interest,” Laurent says.

Damen shakes his head. It’s another moment before he says, “You’re sure he was talking about Berenger Marron?”

Laurent smirks. “His offices are on Third Avenue,” he says, spinning on his heel and walking away, headed south.

Damen takes a couple large strides to catch up. “What makes you think he’s in town, and not in D.C.?”

“He’ll be here,” Laurent says. “His whore’s in town.”


	4. Chapter 4

Berenger Marron, junior senator for New York, is indeed in town. He’s not in his office though, he’s at a soup kitchen uptown.

“Do you think he does this often?” Damen asks, as he and Laurent loiter in the doorway of the soup kitchen, watching Berenger. He’s wearing a plain brown suit, covered by an apron, and a hairnet, smiling and chatting with people as he spoons mashed potatoes onto trays.

“According to the news he does,” Laurent says.

Damen raises an eyebrow at him. “You really do keep up on politics.”

Laurent shrugs one shoulder. “It’s important to be civically aware,” he says. “I take it you didn’t vote for him?”

Damen looks back over at Berenger. “I didn’t vote for anyone.”

Laurent tsks at him, but Damen just shrugs.

They wait for Berenger to finish up before approaching him. He looks more resigned than surprised to hear that Damen is an FBI agent. “Ancel spoke to you?” he says, ushering them outside.

“Redhead?” Damen asks.

Berenger nods.

Damen files the name away – possibly still a fake, but if so it’s likely to be one that’s used professionally – and says, “He spoke to us earlier today and indicated you’ve been being blackmailed by a lobbyist. Laurent-Martin de Vere?”

Berenger’s face twists a bit at the name before smoothing back out. He fiddles with the edge of his apron. “Ancel really shouldn’t have bothered the FBI with any of this. I’m not being  _ blackmailed _ .”

“Extorted?” Laurent says. Berenger’s head jerks toward him. “Or is there another word you’d prefer?” Laurent asks.

Berenger sighs. “I know I’ve been careless,” he says. “And stupid. I never should have… Well, getting involved with Ancel is enough to end my career, if people find out, and I know that. No one wants a senator who’s involved with prostitutes. At least not unless they’re a Kennedy. It’s no one’s fault but mine. De Vere didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“But he knows about it,” Damen says.

“Yes,” Berenger says. “And he has…  _ implied _ that he might be… less than discrete about his knowledge of it.”

Damen waits.

“He’s also asked me to vote a certain way on an upcoming bill.” Berenger scoffs. “Unrelated conversations, of course.”

“Of course,” Laurent mutters.

“So, you see, there’s really nothing you can help me with,” Berenger says. “I’m sorry Ancel bothered you with it. But it’s not the FBI’s problem. There’s no dirty money or bribes here, just a stupid man trying to cover up his infidelities and owing people favors for it.”

Damen sighs, looking further down the street for a moment as he thinks. Berenger isn’t wrong. The only illegal thing in all of this so far is Berenger potentially having paid Ancel for sex – which both Berenger and Ancel have been careful not to actually confirm happened in so many words. De Vere knowing about Berenger and Ancel sleeping together isn’t illegal. De Vere asking Berenger to vote for a bill isn’t illegal. It’s not  _ ethical _ , but…

“I assume you’re after de Vere,” Berenger says. “And best of luck to you. He’s a snake. But I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

\- - -

Damen takes Laurent to the office next. It’s the first time Laurent has been here – when he was arrested, both four years ago and a few weeks ago, he was taken straight to holding – and Laurent eyes the building with some trepidation as he follows Damen inside and to the elevator.

They’re greeted by curious stares as they enter the White Collar offices, but Pallas is the only one to approach. “Hey boss,” he says, falling into step next to Damen as he walks towards his office. Laurent trails behind them. “Did the lead pan out?”

“Better than I hoped for,” Damen says. “Get everyone in the briefing room.”

Pallas veers off towards the bullpen of desks, and Damen detours away from the straight path to his office to give Laurent a quick tour. He’s planning to lead Laurent toward the empty desk they’ve set aside for him, but Laurent gets distracted well before they get there.

“This doesn’t look like the FBI offices on TV at all,” Laurent complains.

Damen laughs. “TV shows have slightly bigger budgets than we do.” He points up a short flight of steps, where a bank of windowed offices overlook the bullpen. “My office is up there.”

Laurent’s too busy poking through the small break room to pay attention to where Damen is pointing. He pulls the coffee pot off the warmer on top of the machine and peers inside it, expression skeptical. “You don’t really drink this, do you?”

“You ate prison food for four years,” Damen points out.

“We had better coffee than this.”

Damen rolls his eyes, but Laurent is eyeing the dishes in the sink with distaste and doesn’t notice. “Come on,” he says. “You can complain about the coffee later. Your desk is over here.”

Laurent follows, looking stunned for a moment, before covering with an expression of careful disinterest. “You got me a desk,” he says.

“Well, you’re going to be working here,” Damen says. The desk is the worst in the office. Too close to the break room, so noisy, and too far from the windows. It’s the desk no one else wants. It usually goes to an intern or a probie. There’s an old computer with a dusty monitor and a keyboard that looks sticky. Someone had left a notepad and pen.

Laurent trails his fingers along the edge as he walks around it. “I can’t see out the window from here,” he says.

Damen catches himself before he rolls his eyes again.

Laurent plops down into the chair and swings his legs around to rest his heels on the edge of the desk, ankles crossed. His GPS monitor flashes a steady green signal, indicating he’s within his radius. “When I was a secretary I had a window,” he says.

“Should have stuck with that instead of a life of crime,” Damen tells him, bemused. He shoves at Laurent’s feet to push them off the desk, then rests his hip against the edge of the desk and crosses his arms, trying to look more serious. “You need to be less antagonistic with the witnesses during interviews. Let me do the talking. You’re here to observe. If you see something, or think of something, tell me, and I’ll ask the questions.”

Laurent frowns. “I thought I was here to catch the Regent for you.”

“You’re here to help, not to do my job for me.” Damen stands back up. “Good first morning though. Meet in the briefing room in ten.”

He can feel Laurent’s gaze boring into his shoulder blades as he walks away.

\- - -

The briefing on the the new developments in the Regent case takes longer than expected because it also serves as an introduction of Laurent to the rest of the team. They’ve all heard of Laurent before, of course, and a few people, like Nikandros, worked on Laurent’s case with Damen years ago. But everyone is new to Laurent, and he’s like a kid in a candy store. Or he starts off that way, until he realizes that FBI agents don’t respond to his usual brand of con-man schmooze the same way a room of businessmen do.

Halvik, an agent who transferred in from the Chicago office a couple years ago, looks Laurent up and down, then says, “Well, I can see why he gets away with so much shit.”

Laurent tries smiling at her. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It’s not one,” Halvik says, already turning away from him.

One of the junior agents, Kashel, flashes Laurent a smile behind Halvik’s back. Damen shakes his head at her. There’s no need to encourage him.

Makedon doesn’t usually attend these briefings, but he’s at this one, presumably because it’s Laurent’s first day. “Crawford,” he barks, as everyone has started gathering their things.

Activity ceases. Laurent tilts his head at him. “Yes, sir?”

“I’ve let Akielon–” Makedon throws a dismissive hand wave towards Damen that really, he could have done without, “–convince me of this little…  _ experiment _ . But you better actually be able to get results on this case, or you’ll be back in prison for the rest of your sentence. I don’t care how pretty Halvik here thinks you are.”

Halvik frowns at having her comment completely misinterpreted, but her only protest is to cross her arms over her chest.

Laurent’s smile is a bit tight around the edges, but he’s still smiling. “Well, with an incentive program like that how could I not produce results?”

Makedon huffs as he stands up, which is the cue to the rest of the room that the meeting is finally over, and everyone begins gathering their things up again.

“Come on,” Damen tells Laurent, gesturing for him to follow.

Damen heads to his office, prepared to dive into research on who exactly Laurent-Martin de Vere is. Laurent immediately drops into one of the guest chairs and before Damen can stop him, he’s turned the photo on the corner of the desk around and is studying it.

“Is this your son?” Laurent asks.

Damen reaches over to snatch the photo back. “Yes.”

“I thought he was older,” Laurent says.

“He’s five.”

“I remember because you complained about it when you were looking for me in Florida.”

“I had to end my paternity leave early to chase you all the way to Miami.” There had been a heist in South Beach that matched Laurent’s MO perfectly, down to surveillance footage of a blonde suspect casing the place in the days leading up to it. Damen had thought at the time that perhaps Laurent had decided to go on spring break.

Laurent looks at him earnestly. “You know I was never in Miami, right?”

Damen takes a deep breath. “I do, yes.” While Damen was sitting in a hotel room near the Miami airport, he’d gotten a call from Interpol with a photo that was unmistakably Laurent talking to a man they dubbed a person-of-interest in a casino robbery in Monaco. As far as Damen could tell, Laurent had never been further south than Atlantic City.

Laurent moves on from the family photo and picks up a rubber-band ball, leaning back and tossing it into the air. He catches it just before it hits him in the face.

“Do you need something to do?” Damen asks.

“Yes,” Laurent says, sitting up straight again.

_ It’s like having a puppy _ , Damen thinks. “Go back to your desk and make sure the computer is working. If it’s not, then contact IT. Ask Pallas for help,  _ not _ me. And then he can show you how to start researching Laurent-Martin de Vere.”

Laurent makes a face. “Research.”

“That’s a big part of the job. We need to know everything there is know about this guy, publically, before we start digging into the private stuff.”

“Do you think he posts about all the dirty secrets he uses to keep senators in line on facebook?” Laurent asks.

“No,” Damen says. “But who knows, maybe he posts a Christmas picture of his kids.”

Laurent scoffs.

“Research,” Damen says, pointing his finger toward the door.

Laurent gets up and leaves, but takes the rubber-band ball with him.

\- - -

By the end of the day, Damen has found out that Laurent-Martin de Vere immigrated from France as a child, along with his parents and older brother, Aleron. He and Aleron had both gone to law school, and eventually gone into politics, opening a small lobbying firm together. Their father had been well-connected politically, but hadn’t used those connections for anything other than his own business and financial gains. His sons had turned the connections into capital, leveraging the family name across both political parties to become known as who you hired when you wanted a tough bill passed or a problem to go away.

Early on, it appeared as if Aleron had been the brains, while Laurent-Martin had more of a reputation as a playboy. Everything Damen can find about the business from a decade ago is above board. Aleron had married and had children, settling down in the D.C. suburbs. Laurent-Martin had residences in D.C., New York, L.A., Paris, and Beijing. Then roughly ten years ago, Aleron, his wife, and his eldest son had died in a small plane crash in the Caribbean. The son had been flying, and it had been attributed to pilot error.

After that, the business got more secretive. There were more rumors, more insinuations online about de Vere being the man behind the curtain, about him being someone you don’t cross. Damen screenshots what he finds, adding it to the file. De Vere doesn’t have any social media of his own, but his name gets mentioned by others, and he does occasionally turn up in the society pages. He’s evidently well known for hosting exclusive parties.

Around four o’clock Nikandros turns up a Livejournal from someone with the name Laurent de Vere that hasn’t been updated in nine years and is full of really bad French poetry and old gifs.

“There’s no way that’s him,” Damen says.

Nikandros rolls his eyes. “His brother’s kid. The younger one,” he adds, at Damen’s confused look. “His name is Laurent too.”

The one de Vere had adopted when his brother and sister-in-law died. Damen looks over the journal with more interest. “Way too many Laurents,” he mutters, glancing out the windows that make up the front wall of his office. He can see out into the bullpen, where his own Laurent is hunched over his desk. 

“Must be a popular name,” Nikandros says.

“Where is this kid now?”

“According to what de Vere told people, he went to Paris for school and has never come back.”

Damen clicks on the last entry, but it’s just a gif of Leonardo DiCaprio, surrounded by falling cash and captioned with “Merry Christmas!” There are a few comments and replies, but they’re all in French. “Get a translator,” he tells Nikandros.

“Already called one,” he says. “Also called Interpol to make sure the kid is really over there.”

Damen nods. “Let me know when they get back to you.” He adds the Livejournal site to his file, so he can take a closer look at it later. If it is the kid that de Vere adopted, then it’s the closest they’ve come to something personal being posted publicly.

He checks in on Laurent’s progress a bit later. He’s spent the past four hours turning the rubber-band ball into a rubber-band sculpture of a cat, and found out absolutely nothing of interest about de Vere.


	5. Chapter 5

Damen had dropped Laurent back off at Torveld’s after work with a warning about staying within his radius, and then checked the tracking data at least once an hour the rest of the evening. Laurent had walked down the street to what looked like a bodega around nine o’clock, but otherwise stayed put. Despite knowing Laurent will be there when he arrives to pick him up the next morning, Damen can’t shake the feeling that _maybe_ he won’t. Maybe sometime between when Damen checked Laurent’s tracking data early this morning and when he pulled up to Torveld’s house, Laurent will have made a run for it.

But no, Laurent is standing on the front steps, leaning against the balustrade. He’s wearing a different suit than yesterday, but it’s just as well-tailored, and he’s skipped the hat this time. He spots Damen’s car before Damen has gotten out, and practically skips over.

“Good morning!” Laurent says cheerily as he slides into the passenger seat.

Damen, who’d been in the process of getting out of the car, settles back into his seat and redoes his seatbelt. “You’re… chipper,” he says, searching for the right word.

“It’s a brand new day,” Laurent says. “I’m a free man – relatively,” he adds, as Damen opens his mouth to object. “And one of my sources found a new lead for you.” He turns his wide grin on Damen. “A lead that _won’t_ involve research!”

“One of your sources?” Damen asks.

Laurent nods.

“I’m going to need more than that to go on,” Damen tells him. “Who is it? And when did you talk to them?” He knows Laurent didn’t go anywhere, unless the source was the owner of the bodega. And he doesn’t think Laurent has a phone.

“Don’t you trust me?” Laurent asks.

“Only as far as I can throw you,” Damen says.

Laurent’s eyes dart to Damen’s arms for a moment. “How far would that be, exactly?”

“It was a figure of speech,” Damen says.

“But if it wasn’t…” Laurent presses.

“Laurent.”

“This source is legitimate,” Laurent insists, as if that was the topic all along. “Wasn’t the point of this that you need me to talk to the people you can’t?”

Partly, Damen has to admit. “What’s the lead?” he asks.

“The Regent has been throwing parties over at Club Fierté. My source knows one of the bouncers.”

“The Regent,” Damen says. “Not de Vere?”

Laurent waves a hand dismissively. “They’re the same, right?”

“Right,” Damen says. “But is he throwing them as Laurent-Martin de Vere, or is he using a code name of some sort? That club hasn’t been mentioned in any of the society write ups about parties he throws.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Laurent says.

“Why not?”

Laurent frowns. “I just mean, he’s probably throwing some parties that are above board for the papers, that a journalist or two get invited to for photo ops, and throwing other parties for his illegal activities.”

That’s not a bad theory, and Damen tells Laurent as much.

“I know,” Laurent says, as if Damen has been patronizing.

Damen shakes his head and finally puts the car into drive. “Let’s go check out the club then,” he says. “I’m going to have Pallas meet us there.”

“Calling in backup?” Laurent asks.

“Did your source know who would be there?” Damen asks, thinking that it could be a trap. At best, it’s still an unknown situation, and Laurent is unarmed and untrained. Pallas is necessary backup in this case.

“No,” Laurent admits. “He did promise that the bouncer would be around this morning. And that he’d be willing to talk, if we could convince him.”

Damen frowns. “That’s… Well, not the worst I’ve ever worked with, I guess.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something to entice him,” Laurent says.

\- - -

The daytime security guard from the front door leads them to a back room. Damen motions to Pallas, and with a nod he waits out front, to watch the entrances and exits. Inside, the bouncer that Laurent’s source claims to know, a man named Lazar, is lounging at a desk, feet up, watching late morning news programs. Or what passes for news, Damen supposes. He looks tired, but put together, with closely cropped hair and a short beard.

He doesn’t even sit up straight when Damen and Laurent walk in, just gives Damen a once over and then decides to address all his attention to Laurent. “You could do better than him, sweetie.”

“Are you offering?” Laurent asks, while Damen is still sputtering at the innuendo.

“Oh, definitely,” Lazar says, leering.

Laurent tilts his head at him. “I don’t know. He brings a lot to the… table. You might not be able to compete.”

Lazar smirks. “You haven’t seen what I’m offering.”

Damen needs to regain control of this situation before this asshole propositions Laurent while Laurent is on the clock for the government. Because Laurent will accept and then he’ll turn around and sue them all for sexual harassment or something for allowing it to happen. Well, alright, Damen can admit that makes no logical sense, but Laurent is twisty like that. His mind doesn’t work in logical ways.

Damen is too busy imagining all the horrific ways this is going to play out to stop what’s actually happening. Laurent perches on the edge of the desk and leans in towards Lazar, one hand resting on the other man’s shin for balance he doesn’t need. His voice is sickly sweet. “You could offer me some information about what kind of parties Monsieur de Vere is throwing here.”

Lazar rears back, feet flying up as as he struggles to get to his feet, and Laurent steps neatly back, away from him and back to Damen’s side.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lazar demands.

That’s Damen’s cue. “Agent Damen Akielon,” he says, flashing his badge. “We’re looking int–“

“The fucking FBI?! Is this a raid? Who told you about this place?”

“It’s not a–“ Damen tries to say, but Laurent interrupts him.

“Jord sent us.”

Lazar stops the slight pacing he’d started up. “You know Jord?”

“Yes,” Laurent says. “We go way back.”

Lazar frowns. “You’re not an FBI agent,” he says.

“No,” Laurent says.

“He’s a consultant,” Damen says.

“I’m on work release,” Laurent adds.

Lazar looks amused. “You’re a snitch.”

“That too,” Laurent says.

Lazar looks between them for a long moment, then asks, “Jord really sent you?”

“He did,” Laurent says. “He said you’d be willing to talk to us.”

“He’s a sentimental idiot,” Lazar says. “Ever since he got involved with one of the boss’ boys and got himself run out over it.” He runs a hand through his hair, then says. “And do you have a name, then?”

“Louis Dupont,” Laurent says. Damen shoots him a look, recognizing one of the Laurent’s more favored aliases. At least until Damen had cracked it five years ago.

Lazar doesn’t look convinced either. “Sure, _Dupont_. What did Jord tell you was going on here, exactly?”

“He didn’t,” Laurent says, leaning against the desk again. He makes a show of examining his cuticles before he says, “But I can make a guess. De Vere likes a certain… kind of entertainment. And you seem like a nice guy, Lazar. Is that your first name? Or last?”

“It’s the only name you’re getting, sweetcheeks.”

“Fair enough,” Laurent says. “You don’t seem like the type who’s into that kind of thing though.”

“Into what, exactly?” Lazar asks.

Which is what Damen is wondering as well. He doesn’t interrupt though, even if Laurent is going directly against the directions Damen had given him yesterday. He’s got the guy talking.

Laurent’s smile is ugly. “My agent friend is going to need to hear it from you, not me.”

“I didn’t ask to get involved with the FBI,” Lazar says.

“You haven’t done anything though, have you?” Laurent says. “You’ve just… looked the other way. And you can stop now. Relieve that guilty conscious. Agent Akielon here will even get you a good deal for helping us out. We’re not after you.” He smiles at Lazar, softly this time. “You’re not the bad guy here. We know that.”

Damen’s mind is reeling. What the hell is Laurent playing at? He can’t promise deals to people.

Damen reaches out to grab Laurent’s arm. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?” he says. It’s not really a question.

Laurent looks up at him, but Lazar is already saying, “Are you gonna help the kids?”

Damen turns to him and asks, “Kids?” at the same time that Laurent says, “Yes, of course.”

What unfolds next is a sordid tale of what Lazar keeps calling _parties_ but Damen can only think of as a perversion of the word. Laurent-Martin de Vere apparently uses this club to host underground sex orgies for “clients” that mostly include politicians and businessmen, both domestic and international, where the main “entertainment” is underage boys and girls. Mostly boys, Lazar tells them. De Vere has a type, apparently. Preteen and pretty.

“And your job?” Damen asks.

“Just security,” Lazar says. “Guarding the door, checking names.”

“So you could give us a list of those names?”

Lazar licks his lips, eyes darting away for a moment, but says, “Yes.”

Damen flips his small notebook to clean page and hands it to Lazar, along with his pen. “I need every single person you can remember. Even partial names or aliases.”

Damen’s mind is still reeling. He feels completely blindsided by this. He knows Lazar said the kids were preteens but in his mind he sees his own son’s face, cheeks round with baby fat, and there’s a part of him that just… feels r _age_ . It’s churning in his gut, causing his whole body to clench with it, and he wants to find a release. He wants to turn a throw a punch at the wall, he wants to punch _Lazar_ , for looking the other way even once. But he can’t right now, he has to swallow it down, pack it away, maintain the cool exterior of a seasoned FBI agent.

The worst part is that it’s clear Laurent _knew_ what they were walking into. He knew what questions to ask, how to lead Lazar into talking to them. He knew that this was going to lead to pedophiles and human trafficking and he hadn’t given Damen a single word of warning.

When they exit Lazar’s office, after what feels like hours but has really only been about thirty minutes, Pallas is still lounging against one wall. He straightens up. “Any luck, boss?”

Damen nods, distracted now by looking over the main area of the club. It’s mostly low lounge areas, couches and coffee tables, a few bars off the side of the room. His stomach turns.

Lazar has followed them out of the office, and greets Pallas with a whistle. “Well hello gorgeous.”

Damen watches, stunned, as Pallas blushes and stammers out a hello in return. “Don’t flirt with him,” Damen says. “He’s a criminal informant.”

Pallas frowns. “So is Laurent.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Damen asks.

Pallas looks annoyed, but doesn’t answer. Laurent is across the room, looking at something on the wall.

“What’s that?” Damen asks, coming up behind him.

Laurent startles a bit. “Just their liquor license. It’s in order.”

“Hmm,” Damen says. “Come on. We’re done here. And we need to talk.”

“About what?” Laurent asks, following as Damen heads towards the door.

Damen waits until he’s seen Pallas off and he and Laurent are back in the car to ask, “How did you know de Vere was a pedophile?”

Laurent’s expression, curious as he fiddled with Damen’s radio again, shuts down in less than a second, as if he’d put on a mask. He continues pressing radio buttons, but more aimlessly. “What are you talking about?”

“You knew,” Damen says. “Before we got there. You knew what de Vere was doing at that club. You knew what to ask Lazar about. How?”

There’s a long pause. Laurent finds a classical radio station and listens for a few seconds before rejecting it. The next station is playing pop music. “My source told me.”

“The mysterious Jord?”

“Yes,” Laurent says.

“Bullshit.”

Laurent looks up. “It’s true,” he insists.

Damen scoffs. “You’re lying.”

“How would you know?”

“I know you,” Damen says.

Laurent leaves the radio on the pop station, leaning back in his seat. “You don’t know anything about me,” he says. “I found out from Jord. I didn’t tell you ahead of time because your reaction would have blown it. We got what we needed. What’s the problem, exactly?”

Damen puts the car into drive finally, pulling out of the parking spot too sharply and getting honked at by an oncoming car. “From now on, you tell me everything you find out. I don’t care what it is or if you think you know how to handle it or not. You’re not the professional here, I am.”

Laurent rolls his eyes. “Sir, yes sir,” he mutters.

The rest of the ride to the office is silent.

\- - -

As they head into the building, Laurent pauses. “What are you doing?” Damen asks.

“Smoke break,” Laurent says, gesturing to the group of smokers lingering on the sidewalk. They look like agents, mostly.

Damen watches him closely, but Laurent doesn’t give anything away. “You don’t smoke.”

“Nasty prison habit,” Laurent says. “It’s currency there, you know? Well, that and–“

Damen waves a hand to cut him off. “I don’t want to know,” he says.

“Ramen noodles,” Laurent says, expression overly innocent. “What did you think I was going to say?”

Damen shakes his head. “Be upstairs in ten minutes or I’m sending the marshals after you,” he says.

Laurent raises two fingers in a Boy Scouts salute, walking backwards towards the group of smokers.

“Don’t do that,” Damen says. “You were never a Boy Scout.”

“Sure I was,” Laurent says. “I earned merit badges.”

“In what? Robbing banks?”

Laurent smirks, spinning on his heel and walking up to one of the men smoking. Damen doesn’t recognize him, but that’s not surprising in an office building this size. Laurent bums a cigarette and a light, and strikes up a conversation. Damen turns away, leaving him to it.

Upstairs in the office, he sets up another all hands meeting on the Regent, and sends an email to Makedon updating him on developments. Nikandros is out in the field, following up on another lead, so it’s going to mean a late night before Damen’s meeting can take place. But the developments from this morning can’t wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, he starts looking into the list of names Lazar had given them. He’ll have to pass it along to sex crimes as well, and see if anyone is in their database or lines up with any of their current cases.

Damen has only gotten half the list typed up before Makedon knocks on his door. He steps into the office before Damen can invite him and closes the door behind him. “How’s Crawford doing?” he asks, not even bothering with a hello.

“He’s already cracked the case wide open,” Damen admits. He gestures at the papers strewn around his desk. “We’ve got a name, a motive… But he’s still keeping secrets.”

Makedon leans over to peer at Damen’s notes. “What kind of secrets?”

“He knows a lot more about this case than he’s letting on. He claims he has a source, but won’t introduce me. Maybe he does. Maybe the source is himself. He knew de Vere’s name before Ancel told us. He knew about the pedophilia.” Damen leans back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how he knows yet.”

“And the connection to Nicaise Perdue?”

“Maybe nothing,” Damen admits. “I don’t know.”

“Hmm.” Makedon steps back, arms crossed over his chest. “That’s a lot of ‘I don’t knows.’ Figure it out Akielon. Before he cuts that anklet and makes a run for it.”

“He won’t do that,” Damen insists.

Makedon snorts. “Yes, he will. That’s the entire reason he’s doing this. I don’t know what he’s waiting for. His passport guy to come up with a good fake, maybe. But trust me, he’s going to run for it. Be ready when he does.”

There’s a noise from the bullpen, and they both turn to see that Laurent has gotten back from his smoke break and is entertaining the junior agents with a card trick of some sort.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Makedon says. “He’s charming, but he’s a con man.”

“I know who he is,” Damen says.

\- - -

Damen spends a good chunk of his afternoon over in the sex crimes offices with Pallas, talking with their agents and a representative from the Innocence Lost program. He thought he would have to fight to keep the case in White Collar, but it boils down to not having any proof of the sex crimes, aside from one unreliable witness, and as of yet no actual victims. “Call us back when you have something definitive,” the rep, Vannes, tells him. She’s apologetic about not being able to do more, but Damen can see her point. They just have hearsay.

On the way back up, Pallas says, “What about Nicaise?”

“What about him?” Damen asks.

“Well,” Pallas says. “Laurent broke out of prison to see him. And you said you think Laurent knew about the Regent being a pedophile before the security guard told you. What if Nicaise was one of his victims, and he’s the one who told Laurent so much about the Regent’s operation?”

Damen watches the numbers of the floors flash by without really seeing them. Is that it? Is that the connection? Is Nicaise the lynchpin tying Laurent to this whole case? “That’s a good theory,” he tells Pallas. “It would explain how he knows so much.”

Pallas looks pleased at the praise. “Now if we could just find Nicaise.”

Damen snorts. “He’s a ghost, unfortunately.”

The elevator dings on their floor, and Damen follows Pallas back into the office, still turning this new thought over in his mind. Nicaise had never shown up at the group home again, or the Soho loft, and if Laurent has been in contact with him since getting out he hasn’t mentioned it. He really is a ghost.

Laurent is sitting at his desk, doodling in a notebook. He looks up and watches Damen as he walks past, but Damen just nods at him and doesn’t stop to chat.

\- - -

Nikandros returns late that afternoon and dumps a box of files on Damen’s desk. “What’s this?” Damen asks.

“Junk from Aleron de Vere’s old business partner, David Herode,” Nikandros says.

Damen plucks a piece of paper off the top of the box. It’s a memo about upgrading the hard drives of the office computers to ten gigabytes, dated September 5, 2001. “Herode?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s a hoarder,” Nikandros says. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not yet. But he has tons of files from before de Vere forced him out of the business, and he handed them all over without a fuss when I said I was looking into him. Said: ‘I always knew someone would catch up to him eventually.’”

“Does he actually know what de Vere was doing?”

“Didn’t seem to, just that it was shady and he wasn’t surprised the FBI was interested.” Nikandros nudges the box. “The files are sorted by years, at least. I’ve taken the late ‘90s. Halvik has 90 to 95. Those are the years with the most paperwork. We dumped the 80s onto Kashel.”

“That’s not nice, Nik,” Damen says.

“She’ll be fine,” Nikandros says. “You get the 2000s. Herode got run out after Aleron died. There’s not much after that.”

Damen eyes the box. It’s still a lot of paper, and several CDs are scattered in among things as well, only some of them in cases. “When am I supposed to go through all this?”

“Sorry, did you need beauty sleep?” Nikandros says.

Damen flips him off.

Nikandros laughs, turning to leave, but Damen calls him back. “Since you’re back, I need to brief everyone on what Laurent and I found out this morning.”

“What is it?”

“De Vere is a sick fuck,” Damen says.

“Well, we knew about the prostitutes,” Nikandros points out.

“Turns out they’re underage,” Damen says.

“Oh,” Nikandros says, drawing out the vowel. “How underage?”

“Very,” Damen says.

Nikandros mouth twists. “How’d you find that out?”

Before Damen answer there’s a knock on the door, and Kashel leans her head in. “Hey boss. Bosses. Those translations came back.”

“Our teenage poetry?” Nikandros asks.

“Yep,” she says. “They did the comments section too.”

“That was fast.”

Kashel shrugs. “The translation guy said he was bored and poetry was more interesting than business emails.”

“Get everyone in the briefing room in ten,” Damen tells her. “Sounds like it’s been a productive day all around.”

Kashel nods and starts to pulls the door closed, then opens it again to ask, “Did you want Laurent too?”

“Yes,” Damen says, thinking that should be obvious. “He’s on the team.”

“It’s just,” Kashel starts, “he was here earlier, after you got in, but then he went on a smoke break and hasn’t been back.”

Damen glances at the clock. It’s past four o’clock.

“Maybe he’s just taking a walk,” Kashel suggests.

“Maybe he’s casing that jewelry store down the street,” Nikandros says.

Damen turns to his computer, clicking on the bookmark for Laurent’s GPS tracking data website. He has to log in before the map comes up, but once it loads he stares at it for a few seconds before he recognizes the landmarks. “He’s still in the building somewhere.”

The problem is that while Damen can tell Laurent is in the building, it still gives him forty-one stories to search through that include more than just the FBI offices. It takes him half an hour before he finally finds Laurent on the roof. He’s leaning against the short wall surrounding the edge, looking out at the city. Damen drags his feet so Laurent will hear him coming.

“I don’t need to call the jumper squad do I?” he asks.

“The what?” Laurent asks, not even bothering to turn around.

“It’s who we call when someone’s about to jump off a building,” Damen explains.

Laurent does glance over his shoulder then, but it’s to give Damen a disparaging look. “Do I look like I’m about to jump?”

“Why are you up here?”

“It’s a nice view,” Laurent says.

It is, but that’s not why Laurent is up here. The wind is whipping Laurent’s hair around his face, and it’s tugging at Damen’s jacket. Damen walks up to stand next to Laurent and sticks his hands in his pockets, waiting. The view down is dizzyingly far.

Eventually, Laurent says, “I just wanted some fresh air, really.”

“The office isn’t that cramped,” Damen points out. “And you could have gone, I don’t know, _down_ rather than up. Or told me where you were going. You’ve been gone for hours.”

“I didn’t want to be around people.”

“Why? You love people.”

“Not always,” Laurent says, looking back out at the view. The sun is starting to set, tinting the sky behind the buildings to the west yellow and reflecting off the windows.

Damen frowns, watching Laurent’s profile for a clue, but there’s no sign of what Laurent’s thinking on his face. He looks more serious than normal. “Is it because of this morning?” Damen tries guessing. He’s been feeling disquieted himself, ever since learning what’s truly going in this case, and he’s not looking forward to having to tell the rest of the team. It’s not part of their usual white collar cases.

Laurent frowns, but says, “Yes, that’s it.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” Damen admits. “I’ve been upset at it all day too.” Laurent’s watching him now, though he hasn’t moved. “But I shouldn’t have taken that out on you,” Damen continues. “I was just… surprised. And when I hear about stuff like that, I always start thinking about my own kid. And what I’d do if anything ever happened to him.”

Laurent does turn now, wind still whipping his hair across his face, and asks, almost curiously, “What would you do?”

“Kill the bastard,” Damen says. Then he laughs, and runs a hand through his hair, looking back out at the view. “Sorry, that’s not what– I’m supposed to say I’d arrest whoever did it, right? But I’d probably beat them to death before I slapped the cuffs on.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what that says about me.”

Laurent’s looking at him with an expression Damen can’t quite place. “I think it makes you a good person,” he says softly. His eyes are very blue.

Damen looks away first, with a cough that’s obviously fake. “How’d you get up here, anyway?” he asks. “The door is locked.”

Laurent shoots him an affronted look.

“Right, I’m talking to a master thief,” Damen says. “Never met a lock you couldn’t pick, have you?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Laurent says.

“Well come on,” Damen tells him. “We’ve got a briefing we’re late for, and I need you to make copies.”

\- - -

Unveiling the new pedophilia angle to the case goes about how Damen expects. The team reacts with a mix of discomfort and disgust. It really isn’t the sort of thing they usually handle. “We’ll be holding onto the case for now, since it’s still hearsay,” he explains, telling them the same reason that had been given to him earlier. “But Innocence Lost will be called in if we uncover any hard evidence.”

“Hard evidence?” Kashel asks.

Nikandros is the one who answers her. “Kiddie porn, an actual victim, that sort of thing. Proof.”

“Innocence Lost?” Laurent questions, his skepticism clear from his tone. “What the hell is that?”

Damen reminds himself that Laurent is new, hasn’t heard about it before, and has had a rough day as he answers. “ _That_ ,” he says, “is the task force that deals with child prostitution. They’re focussed mainly on getting the kids out of it.”

Laurent frowns. “I didn’t know you had a special group for that.”

“We do,” Damen tells him. “And now, we all get to read some poetry, courtesy of de Vere’s nephew. Fingers crossed he reveals where the offshore accounts are hidden in iambic pentameter. Anyone want to volunteer to read it aloud?”

No one offers.

“Come on guys,” Damen say, trying to lighten the mood. “I know it’s late but one of you must secretly enjoy open mic night.”

Pallas is already thumbing ahead through the packets that Damen had made Laurent copy for everyone. “Did they translate the entire blog?”

“Pretty much,” Kashel says. “It really wasn’t that many entries, and Jerry said it didn’t take long.”

“Who’s Jerry?” Halvik asks.

“The guy in translations. I told you I went down to talk to him about it.”

“If no one is going to volunteer then I’m going to read the first one,” Damen says. He clears his throat before starting:

_“I drown in white sheets_   
_Gasping for breath_   
_Choking_   
_Isn’t that what drowning is?_   
_White sheets like waves_   
_All the way to the horizon_   
_I’ve stopped fighting_   
_They drowned once  
But I drown every night.”_

There’s a long pause, then Kashel says, “You should do an open mic night sometime, boss.”

Laurent is frowning down at his packet. “It should say _struggling_ in the seventh line, not fighting.”

Damen looks at his own packet, reading over the original French on the left to find the word. “The verb is _lutter_ ,” he argues. “That means ‘to fight.’”

“Yes,” Laurent says. “To an unnuanced swine, perhaps.”

“So now you’re an expert on bank robbery _and_ angsty teenage poetry translation?” Damen says. That gets a laugh from a few of the others, but Laurent doesn’t look amused. He actually looks serious about this.

“Translation is a unique art form of its own that cannot rely solely on the literal meaning of the source material,” Laurent says. He tosses his packet onto the table. “Maybe this kind of illiterate linguistic bashing works for translating Interpol files and surveillance transcripts but for the realm of literature, real expertise is required.”

Everyone stares at him, the silence that follows is thick and heavy. Finally, Damen asks, “Aren't struggling and fighting basically the same thing anyway?”

Laurent takes a deep breath before he says, “Fighting would imply some chance of winning. A struggle implies futility.” His eyes meet Damen’s, boring into him again, just as intense as they were on the roof but with none of the softness from that earlier moment. This gaze feels like a challenge. It feels like Laurent is looking for something from Damen and not finding it. “That’s what the entire poem is about,” he says.

“Alright,” Damen says. “Struggling then. Everyone, you’ll have to make corrections in your own packets.”

Reading through the rest of the translated blog goes more smoothly. Laurent keep making snarky corrections to the translation, but everyone dutifully crosses out and replaces the words he suggests and he seems mollified by it.

It’s not until they’ve gotten through the whole thing and all it’s revealed is that de Vere’s nephew was full of angst and sarcasm, and not any decent clues, that Halvik asks, “So, are we going with the theory that de Vere was abusing his nephew too?”

There’s a long moment of silence before Damen asks, “What makes you think that?”

She shrugs. “You said earlier that the guard told you he liked preteen boys. This kid was, what? Twelve when his parents died and de Vere adopted him?”

Kashel’s frowning. “Doesn’t seem funny to read his old blog now,” she says.

“It never was funny,” Halvik says sharply.

“The entry with the Project Runway analysis was kind of funny,” Pallas says.

There’s a clatter from across the room, one of the chair backs swinging around to hit the edge of the table, and Damen looks up from reading over one of the poems again to find Laurent already standing with his hand on the door. Before he can say anything, Laurent is out the door, pulling it shut behind him.

Everyone is left staring after him.

After a moment, Nikandros says, “I think he’s got the right idea. We’re not going to get anywhere else tonight, and the kid’s blog is a dead end. Let’s all head home. We’ve got those papers from Herode to sort through tomorrow.”

There’s a groan from everyone. “I’d take more poetry over that,” Pallas mutters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to Stillwaterseas for Laurent’s angsty teenage poetry. She’s the real mvp.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day at work is an unproductive day of going through Herode’s files, and even making Laurent help with it barely makes a dent in things. Laurent is as unhelpful with research as ever.

At one point, they come across some emails in French and Damen passes those over to Laurent, who glances over them and then says, “They’re about ink toner,” before handing them back.

“Where did you learn French?” Damen asks. What he’s really wondering is where Laurent learned it well enough to translate this fast

“From my parents,” Laurent says absently, already reading the next file.

Damen raises an eyebrow, filing away that unusual admission of personal history from Laurent. “I thought you were going to say high school,” he says, recalling Laurent’s comment yesterday.

Laurent frowns, still looking at the document in his hand. “I didn’t go to high school,” he mutters. Before Damen can ask about that bombshell, he shoves the file under Damen’s nose, “There’s a reference to Chastillion Investments here.”

Sure enough there is. This must be when de Vere first opened the company he later used to launder money. “Good find,” Damen says.

It’s the only good find they’ve had from this box of seemingly endless files. Damen usually tries not to take work home with him on nights he has Theo, but he’s itching to check this off his list and he’ll need something to do once Theo goes to bed anyway.

“What’s that?” Theo asks that evening, as Damen pulls the box from the trunk.

“Work stuff,” Damen tells him. “You need to leave it alone, alright? It’s not for playing with. It’s evidence. Of a crime.”

“What kind of crime?” Theo asks, way more interested now than he was before. He trails behind Damen up the sidewalk to their building.

“A very boring one,” Damen says, “that involves lots of paperwork.”

Theo makes a face as he helps hold the front door of their building open. There are a couple of middle school girls sitting in a corner of the lobby, huddled around what looks like a chemistry set. They glance up as Damen and Theo come in.

“Hey Mr. A,” one of the girls says. It’s the daughter of the woman who lives down the hall from Damen, who’s babysat for Theo once or twice before.

“Hi Lucy,” he says.

Theo makes a beeline towards them. “Ooh, _slime_ ,” he says, reaching for one of the jars sitting on the floor and sticking a pudgy finger into it.

“Theo,” Damen says, setting his box down and chasing after him. “Sorry, ladies.” He tries to tug Theo away from them.

“It’s glittery,” Theo says, holding up his finger to show Damen.

“It’s alright,” Lucy says. Her friend looks more disgruntled at having their space invaded by a preschooler. “Here, Theo.” She hands him a smaller piece of Tupperware that already has a lid on it. “You can have this one. It’s fluffy.”

Theo accepts this gift with his eyes alight, probably because banning slime is one thing Damen and Jokaste both agree on. It’s sure to wind up all over the couch later.

Damen tries not to sigh. “What do you say?”

“Thank you!” Theo yells.

Theo’s entertained by his new slime for a good fifteen minutes, which is long enough for it to collect half the dust bunnies in Damen’s living room. Then he’s hungry, and then amused by the slime again after dinner. By the time Damen has given him a bath and they’ve read a book, the slime has finally lost its appeal, having gotten stuck to the rug in the hallway. “You’ll have to ask Lucy for a new one next time she babysits,” Damen tells him, as he tucks Theo in for the night.

“Can she babysit tomorrow?”

“No, you have school tomorrow.”

Theo’s still pouting as he drops off to sleep.

Back downstairs, Damen gets himself a beer before he tackles the contents of Herode’s box again. It’s mostly junk, old receipts and expense reports, business cards with outdated contact information, printouts of emails Herode had felt were worth saving for whatever reason. Most of it goes in the same ‘useless’ pile, though Damen does put the business cards in the pile of things to possibly follow up on. Some of the names might turn up a lead.

He’s halfway through his beer when he finds the funeral program. He’d been expecting just business papers. It’s from the joint service that was held for Aleron de Vere and his wife and son. The picture on the front looks like it was taken at the son’s graduation, but Damen can’t tell if it’s high school or college. How old had he been, anyway? They’re all three smiling brightly at the camera, arms around each other. The son looks like his father, but has his mother’s coloring. There’s something about his smile that looks familiar. Maybe they’d used the same photo for the obituary Damen read online.

He flips the program open, skimming over the biography. Aleron de Vere, born in France, immigrated to America as a child. Married Hennike Kempt, from Quebec, in 1977, and had a son, Auguste, in 1979. The younger son, Laurent, hadn’t been born until 1991. An oops baby, probably, Damen thinks. He does the math in his head. That’s twelve years between kids. His own brother is nine years older, but they had different mothers. And it’s probably a college graduation in that picture for Auguste; he’d been twenty-five when he died.

Damen has nearly reached the bottom of the box now, and rather than business memos the papers have turned more personal. There are some letters and cards that he suspects Herode will want back, and he sets those in a pile together with the funeral program, after judging that they’re not relevant to the case.

One of the cards looks like a generic postcard at first, with a scrawled message about wishing Herode well this time of year, but then Damen catches the name ‘Laurent’ in the message, and reads it closer.

_Dear David,_

_Hope this season finds you well. Young Laurent and I are off to spend the holidays in Marseille. We’ll chat more about the business direction when I return._

It’s signed _LMV_ , in loopy letters. _Laurent-Martin de Vere._

Damen flips the postcard over, and his first thought is: That’s Laurent. _His_ Laurent.

It can’t be, of course, but he can’t shake the thought as he studies the card. The cover of the postcard is one of those posed family Christmas photos, full color with a generic _Seasons’ Greetings_ embossed over the top in gold. It’s a formal portrait, with de Vere standing, straight-backed, wearing a suit, and his nephew perched on a stool next him. De Vere has one hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Laurent de Vere’s eyes are the same as _Damen’s_ Laurent’s eyes. That same clear blue, and that same feeling like he’s staring straight through you. Like he’s looked at you, judged you, and found you lacking.

Laurent Crawford only looks at people that way when he’s not hiding behind an easy smile, of course, which isn’t often. On this boy the expression has been captured on film.

Damen scrambles through the pile on the coffee table until he finds the funeral program again. Auguste de Vere smiles up at him. The same smile that Laurent Crawford uses on the rare occasions when he’s genuinely amused by something, and not just smiling because he’s conning someone. Except it _can’t_ be the same smile, because Laurent Crawford and Auguste de Vere aren’t related. The blue-eyed boy in the photo doesn’t have the same blue eyes as _Damen’s_ Laurent because _they’re not the same person._

Are they?

He winds up calling Nikandros. It’s late, but Nikandros is still up and answers with a gruff, “Yeah?”

“Did you ever find Laurent de Vere?” Damen demands. He sets the Christmas card down on the coffee table next to the funeral program before he winds up tearing it, holding on too tight.

“What?”

“Laurent de Vere. Laurent-Martin de Vere’s nephew. The one he said went to France. Did you find him?”

There’s a long pause, and Damen feels like he’s on the edge of something. As it is, he’s hunched forward on the couch, elbows digging into his knees, waiting for Nikandros to answer. Finally Nikandros says, “Hang on, I’ve got the email somewhere. It came in earlier today.” There’s some fumbling on the other line. “Why the sudden interest in de Vere’s nephew?”

“He’s in some of the paperwork in Herode’s box,” Damen answers truthfully.

“Here it is,” Nikandros says. “Interpol said he never immigrated to Europe. He’s got dual Canadian citizenship through his mother, so he might have gone there without anyone tracking it closely, but he’s not in France like de Vere told everyone.”

Damen stares at the picture. It feels like Laurent de Vere is staring directly back at him. “What else do we have on him?” he asks.

“Aside from that blog? Nothing. You could probably find school records if you wanted,” Nikandros says. Damen can hear the curious frown in his voice. “What is this about, Damen?”

“Just a hunch,” Damen says. “Sorry for calling so late.”

“You can always call anytime,” Nikandros says. “But get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Damen glances over at the clock on the shelf and discovers that it’s nearly midnight. He hadn’t even noticed “Yeah, sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Nikandros bids him a good night, and after clicking the phone off Damen goes back to staring at the photos of the de Vere family.

It must be the beer going to his head. The late hour. Even though it’s not _that_ late and he only had one beer. He’s not thinking straight. He drops everything back into a pile to look over again tomorrow, when he’s fresh, and not coming up with crazy theories.

\- - -

Damen oversleeps the next morning, and it’s a mad rush to get himself and Theo out of the door on time. He had planned on dropping Theo off at Jokaste’s before picking Laurent up, but he’s running late enough that Laurent is already going to be expecting him, and Laurent’s place is on the way to Jokaste’s anyway. Picking up Laurent first is just more efficient, Damen tells himself.

Laurent is thankfully ready to go when Damen pulls up, waiting on the front steps and wearing that hat again. “You’re late,” he says, as he slides into the passenger seat and rests the hat on his lap.

“Hi!” Theo yells from the backseat.

Laurent twists around, eyes wide. “Why is there a child in the car?” he asks.

“We’re dropping him off at his mother’s on the way to the office,” Damen says. “Theo, this is my friend Laurent. We work together.”

Laurent’s head swivels to look at Damen, incredulous, but he’s still twisted backward in his seat.

“Say hello to Theo, Laurent,” Damen tells him.

Laurent looks back at Theo. “Hello Theodore,” he says, overly formal.

Theo tries to say Laurent’s name back, and fumbles it horribly. Laurent spends the rest of the drive to Jokaste’s teaching him how to pronounce it properly. By the time they get there he’s also taught him how to say _Bonjour_.

Damen had planned on leaving Laurent in the car while he dropped Theo off – Jokaste knows who Laurent is, after all, since they’d been together while Damen was chasing after him, and Damen would rather she not know that he introduced their son to a convicted felon – but the decision is taken out of his hands when he turns down Jokaste’s block and spots her standing outside, talking on the phone. He frowns, double parking the car and getting out to find out what she’s doing.

“Oh, Damen, there you are. You’re late,” Jokaste says, distracted. Into the phone, she says, “Yes mom, Damen just got here. Let me call you back. No, don’t wait. I don’t know how long it will take. Well, not that long. I told you I already called someone.” Rather than hanging up the call she presses the phone to her shoulder, and says, “Can you take Theo today? There’s some teacher service day crap at school and my mother is having a–” she mouths the word ‘crisis’ “–and I’ve got to go sort this out.”

“What?” Damen demands, aware that his voice is too loud and that he’s standing in the street, car door still open, car double parked, and the girl walking past them with a dog giving them a wide berth. “I have work.”

“Yes, well, so did I. But now I have to deal with my mother and–” There’s a burst of noise from the phone, and Jokaste puts it back to her ear. “I didn’t mean it like that, mom. Honestly. I just meant that I’m having to rearrange things and Damen’s being difficult.”

“ _I’m_ being difficult?” Damen says.

“Right now, yes.”

“I have to work today, Jokaste,” Damen says again. “What do you mean daycare is closed?”

“I don’t know, they sent out an email saying they were closed. Didn’t you get it?”

“No,” Damen says. At least he doesn’t think so.

“Well, they sent one,” she says. “Doesn’t the FBI have a daycare?”

“It’s full,” Damen says. “Remember, we looked into that last year.”

“Well they can take him just for one day or something,” Jokaste argues.

Damen remembers the paperwork involved just to get on the waitlist for the FBI’s onsite daycare. “No, they can’t.”

Jokaste throws up the hand not holding the phone. “Then take the day off. I don’t know.”

It’s on the tip of Damen’s tongue to tell her to take the day off, seeing as it’s her day anyway, but Jokaste’s mother is a piece of work and Damen really doesn’t want her taking Theo along if she’s going to visit.

“Hey,” Laurent calls. Damen turns back towards the car to find Laurent leaning toward the open door. “I can watch him,” Laurent says.

Damen stares at him.

Jokaste leans down to peer in at Laurent. “Who are you?”

Laurent smiles at her. “Laurent Crawford.”

Jokaste shoots Damen a look with a raised eyebrow before saying, “Damen’s favorite felon?”

“Aw, did he call me his favorite?”

“Not in so many words,” Jokaste says. “But you can tell.” Before Damen can stop this trainwreck, she asks, “What are your childminding qualifications?”

“I was an au pair in Paris, once,” Laurent says. “And I have nothing else to do today.”

Jokaste tilts her head, considering that. “Sounds perfect. You’re hired.” She stands back up straight.

“He’s lying,” Damen says, reflexively.

Jokaste shrugs. “He’s cheap labor. I should be back this evening, I’ll swing by your place to pick him up.” Then she’s back on the phone with her mother, striding away towards the cab that had pulled up halfway through their conversation and sliding into the backseat.

Damen watches the cab turn the corner before he gets back in the car. There’s silence from everyone inside for a minute.

“No school?” Theo asks, eventually.

“Not today, buddy,” Damen says. He sighs. “You’re gonna spend the day at home with Laurent while I go to work, alright?”

Laurent turns towards Theo. “We’ll have lots of fun, don’t worry,” he assures him.

Theo grins back at him. “No school!”


	7. Interlude: Theo's Day Out

Before Daddy goes back to work, he sits Theo down and tells him, very seriously, that while Mr. Laurent is very nice, Theo should Be Careful and if he feels uncomfortable, or weird, or bad at all he should find a phone and call the police right away. Then he makes Theo prove that he knows how to call 911, which of course Theo does because that’s super easy.

Then Daddy talks to Mr. Laurent alone too to give him the same talk. But Theo stands around the corner and listens, and the talk Daddy gives Mr. Laurent sounds less like Be Careful and more like “if anything happens to my son I will send you back to supermax until you’re ninety.”

“I would never let anything happen to him,” Mr. Laurent says.

“And no using him as a patsy,” Daddy adds.

 _Who’s Patsy?_ Theo wonders.

“I will not involve your son in any crimes he could be charged with,” Mr. Laurent promises.

There’s a long pause, then Daddy says. “Just… stay home and watch movies or something. He likes Frozen. Or anything with music. And give me your cell number.”

“What cell number?” Mr. Laurent asks.

“The burner you’ve had since day one. I’m not an idiot, Laurent. I don’t care that you have it, or that you didn’t tell me. But if I need to call you about Theo then I need a phone number. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“You will not,” Mr. Laurent says. “It defeats the whole purpose of having a burner if the FBI knows the number for it.” Then he rattles off a phone number, and Daddy makes him repeat it again, before they finally re-emerge and Theo darts over to the couch and tries to look like he wasn’t listening.

Then Daddy kisses him goodbye and goes to work, and Mr. Laurent gives Theo somes more cereal and teaches him how to count to ten in French too, using the cheerios.

“What time is it?” Theo asks, after he has eaten all of his cheerios.

“Nine forty-five,” Mr. Laurent tells him.

“At school,” Theo says, “we have math at ten o’clock.”

Mr. Laurent looks him. He doesn’t smile or frown, exactly, he just looks. “Do you want to do math?” he asks.

“No,” Theo says.

“Then we won’t do math,” Mr. Laurent says.

“Can we color?” Theo asks.

“We can,” Mr. Laurent says. “If you want.” He pauses. “I have a friend I need to talk to. Do you want to go with me?”

“What kind of friend?” Theo asks, wondering if this is like Daddy’s friend Nikandros, who always talks to Daddy about work, or like Mommy’s friend Kyrina, who always wants to coo at him. Or maybe like Uncle Kastor, who is Mommy’s boyfriend sometimes, but who Daddy thinks is an asshole.

“He’s just an old friend who has been helping me with a project,” Mr. Laurent says. “He lives near the Natural History Museum though. So we could go there too. There’s a big whale.”

“A real whale?” Theo asks.

“It’s up on the ceiling,” Mr. Laurent says, gesturing above his head. “There’s lots of neat stuff. What do you say?”

The big whale does sound pretty cool. “Okay!”

“Do you need a bag or something?” Mr. Laurent asks a bit later, as they prepare to head out.

“A bag?” Theo asks.

“Of stuff.”

Theo has no idea what Mr. Laurent is talking about. A lunch bag, maybe?

“Clothes and diapers and stuff,” Mr. Laurent goes on.

Theo is _horrified_. “I don’t wear _diapers_ ,” he says. “I’m _five_.” He’s not a _baby!_

Mr. Laurent looks down at him silently for a moment. “So no bag of stuff?”

“ _No!_ ” Theo says.

“Okay then,” Mr. Laurent says brightly. “ _Allons-y!_ ”

Theo waits until they’re outside to ask what that means. “It means ‘let’s go,’” Mr. Laurent says.

“ _Allons-y!_ ” Theo shouts, running ahead down the street.

\- - -

When they get to the subway, Mr. Laurent keeps looking around, keeping ahold of Theo’s hand. It’s not very crowded, but Mr. Laurent walks straight into a group leaving, bumping into a woman and apologizing, before dragging Theo toward the turnstiles. When they get there he nudges Theo to duck under the bar, then swipes his own card before he follows.

“Daddy always pays for both of us and pushes the bar for me,” Theo tells him.

“That’s because your father enjoys wasting money,” Mr. Laurent says. “You don’t count as an adult fare yet.”

While they stand waiting for the train, Theo asks, “Mr. Laurent, does the museum have a _real_ whale?”

“It’s a model,” Mr. Laurent tells him. “But they have real dinosaur fossils. Big ones.” Then he adds, “You don’t have to call me mister. You can just call me Laurent.”

“Okay,” Theo says. “What kind of dinosaurs?”

“I’m not sure,” Laurent says. “There might be a T-rex.”

“Really?” Theo stares up at him, wide-eyed. A _real_ T-rex fossil sounds even cooler than the giant whale model.

Laurent laughs. “Really. We just have to visit my friend first, remember?”

“Uh huh,” Theo says, still thinking about the T-rex. He wonders how big it really is. As big as the Empire State Building, maybe? Like Godzilla? That would be a really big fossil to fit inside the natural history museum. So maybe it’s not quite that big. Or maybe they’ve spread it out across the floor, instead of standing it up straight. He wonders if it’s just bones or if it has skin like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Some of those had been as big as _trees_. And they had chased cars and eaten people.

“Do fossils eat people?” he asks.

Laurent looks down at him, looking a bit alarmed by the question. “No,” he says. “Dinosaurs were alive before there were any people around to eat. So they never ate people.”

“They eat people in Jurassic Park,” Theo explains, in case Laurent hasn’t seen the movie.

“Did your father let you watch that?” he asks. “Real dinosaurs died a long time before people evolved.”

“What’s evolved?”

“It means when something was created,” Laurent says. “Or when it began to exist.”

Theo nods, and is about to ask how long before humans evolved the dinosaurs had died, but then their train is arriving and it’s too noisy for him to ask. Laurent takes his hand again and pulls him onto the train to find seats.

“What do you do at the FBI?” Theo asks later, as they’re riding the subway.

Laurent frowns thoughtfully. “Do you know the phrase: you can lead a horse to water but can’t make them drink?”

“No,” Theo says.

“Well, that’s what I do,” Laurent says. “The agents, like your father, are horses. I lead them to the water and they refuse to take a drink.”

Theo stares across the subway car at a colorful poster. “I don’t get it,” he says, turning to look back up at Laurent.

“It means that I have given them everything they need, but they refuse to take it.”

“So… Is Daddy your boss?”

Laurent looks down at him. “I’m a consultant,” he says.

Theo still doesn’t know what that is. “What’s that?”

“I know more about the case than they do, so they brought me in to help solve it. Being hired because you’re smarter than everyone else is called consulting.”

“Oh,” Theo says. “How many cases have you solved?”

Laurent frowns. “Well, none yet. But I have told them everything they need to know to solve this one.”

“My dad is really good at solving cases,” Theo tells him.

“He is,” Laurent agrees. Then he says, “Come on, our stop is next.”

He holds Theo’s hand as they get off the subway and make their way back up to the street. This time Theo gets to push on the bar of the turnstile instead of ducking underneath it, and Laurent takes the steps slowly to wait for Theo to make his own way up them.

“Where is your friend?” he asks, once they’ve reached the top.

“He’s going to meet us at the park,” Laurent says. “His name is Jord.”

“Is he nice?”

“He’s useful,” Laurent says.

“Is that the same as nice?”

“No,” Laurent says. “But he’s nice too.”

Laurent’s friend Jord meets them at the chess tables in the park. Laurent points him out to Theo as they walk towards him. He stares from Laurent to Theo, then back to Laurent, after they approach him.

“Why is there a toddler with you?” Jord asks, after Laurent has said hello.

“He’s not a toddler, he’s six,” Laurent says.

“I’m five,” Theo corrects him.

Laurent crouches down and tells Theo, very seriously, “First lesson: don’t contradict your partner. If something happens you’re not expecting, you have to roll with it.”

“Roll with it?”

“It means make do. Go with the flow,” Laurent explains.

Theo bites his lip. “I’m not six though.” This is very important, and it’s clear that Laurent doesn’t understand. Theo won’t be six until December, which is a whole eight months away. And he’ll be in kindergarten by then. Mommy has been really worried about kindergarten and which one Theo will go to, so it is a Big Deal.

“Jord doesn’t know that,” Laurent says, standing back up.

Jord is still watching them, wide-eyed. “Are you training him?”

“I’m babysitting,” Laurent says. “Theo, this is Jord.”

“Hello Mr. Jord,” Theo says.

“Just call him Jord,” Laurent tells him. “Are you going to say hello to him?” Laurent asks Jord. “He’s a child, not a piranha. He won’t bite.”

Jord still looks wary, but says hello to Theo. “He’s not one of your uncle’s boys, is he?” Jord asks.

Laurent’s nose crinkles, like he smelled something bad. “Bit young for him,” he says.

“Where’d you find him then?”

“I told you, I’m just babysitting for the day,” Laurent says. “But what matters is that the marshals think I’m with the FBI, and the FBI thinks I’m sitting at home watching Disney movies. No one is checking up on me today, and this–” He kicks the heel of one shoe against his other ankle. It makes a weird noise, and Theo stares at his ankle curiously. “–isn’t confined to just two miles.”

Jord frowns. “I don’t have your new ID ready yet. I told you finding one that can’t be cracked would take more time.”

“That can wait,” Laurent says. “Any news on Nicaise?”

Jord shakes his head. “Where ever he is, he’s gone to ground.”

“Or my uncle is just keeping him close for some reason.” Laurent frowns. “I need that key I left with you, to the safety deposit box.”

Laurent still has a hold of Theo’s hand, but he’s otherwise not really paying attention to him. Theo turns around, bored with the adult conversation, and peers at the men sitting nearby playing chess. He tugs on Laurent’s hand. “Laurent, can I play?”

Laurent looks down at him. “Play what?”

Theo gestures to one of the empty chess tables.

“Oh,” Laurent says. “Um. I don’t have a chess set.” He looks at Jord.

Jord’s still frowning – that seems to be his only expression. But he does have a small chess set with him. At Laurent’s raised eyebrow, he says, “I needed a cover. And you were late.”

Jord shows Theo the pieces, and tells him all the different names and where they go on the board.

Laurent sits next to Theo on the bench. “I’ll help you win,” he says. “Here, you’re white, so you go first. Move this pawn up two squares.”

“I want to move the king,” Theo says.

“Not yet,” Laurent says. “He’s the most important piece. We have to keep him safe. But we want to knock over Jord’s king. Now see, Jord moved one of his pawns too. But he only moved it one square. So now we’re going to move this pawn one square.”

They go on like that for a bit until Theo does, indeed, win the game. “Tell him ‘Checkmate,’” Laurent whispers to Theo.

“Checkmate!” Theo yells.

Jord looks a bit rueful as he knocks over his own king and says, “Oh look, you beat me.”

“I beat him!” Theo says, turning to Laurent with a bright grin.

“Good job,” Laurent tells him. He holds up a hand for a high five, and Theo smacks his palm against it.

“You still have that key, don’t you?” Laurent asks Jord, as Jord is gathering up the chess pieces.

Jord nods. “It’s in one of my stashes though.”

The ‘stash’ Jord sends them to is nearby, and after Laurent picks up the key they go to a bank, where Laurent asks to see the safety deposit boxes and shows the bank teller the key.

The safety deposit boxes are in the back of the bank, and Theo looks around, wide-eyed, as the teller leads them back. He’s expecting to be led through the big round bank door and into the room that holds all the money, but instead they just wind up in a room full of little mailboxes on the walls with a table in the middle.

“Will you need any assistance, sir?” the teller asks.

“No, thank you,” Laurent says. He waits for the teller to leave before he heads towards one of the mailboxes, using the key to open it.

“I thought we were at the bank,” Theo says.

“We are,” Laurent says, distracted, as he opens the mailbox.

“Why are you getting the mail at the bank?” Theo asks.

Laurent pulls a metal box out of the mailbox and turns to bring it over to the table. “These are safety deposit boxes, not mailboxes. You can store things in them.”

“What kind of things?” Theo asks, standing on his tiptoes to watch as Laurent opens the box.

Inside the box looks likes Mommy’s jewelry box. Laurent shifts through the jewelry, sorting it, before he scoops up everything in it and shoves it into his pocket. It’s only a few necklaces, really, but they were very shiny.

“My mommy has necklaces like that,” Theo says.

“Does she?” Laurent asks. “Probably not as sparkly as these.”

“Are those your mom’s?”

Laurent’s in the process of putting the metal box back in the safety deposit box on the wall, but pauses at Theo’s question. “One of them is,” he says.

When they leave the bank it’s nearly noon, and Theo is hungry, so Laurent buys them slices of pizza and they eat it standing on the sidewalk.

“Can we go see the whale now?” Theo asks.

“Yes,” Laurent says. “Time for the museum.”

On the walk there, Daddy calls Laurent to ‘check in’ and after Laurent has said that they’re engaged in educationally stimulating activities and that Daddy is being silly to worry, he hands the phone to Theo. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Hi buddy,” Daddy says.

“Hi Daddy!”

“How’s your day going so far?”

“It’s really fun,” Theo says. “Laurent took me on the subway and then we played chess with Jord and I won and then we went to the bank and that was kind of boring but now we’re going to go see the big whale. Oh and I know how to count in French now. _Une deux trois_ . And _allons-y_ means ‘let’s go!’”

Daddy laughs. “That sounds like an exciting morning. I thought you guys were going to watch movies.”

“Laurent said there were dinosaurs at the museum.”

“The Natural History Museum?” Daddy asks. “They have a T-rex.”

“Awesome,” Theo says.

“I’ll see you for dinner then. Have fun. Hand the phone back to Laurent, okay?”

Theo hands the phone back, and Laurent says, “Satisfied that I’m not leading him into a life of crime?” Then there’s a pause, and he says, “Well, that’s why I went to the bank. I can pay for it.” Another pause. “If it’s that big of a deal to you then you can pay me back later. Okay. We’ll be back at your place by five. Bye.”

He hangs up the phone, and says to Theo, “Your father is a control freak.”

“Mommy says that too.”


	8. Chapter 7

Damen doesn’t want to admit it, but having Laurent out of the office today is actually a lucky break. It gives him a chance to dig into Laurent-Martin de Vere’s nephew, and the crackpot theory his mind had cooked up last night that Laurent Crawford and Laurent de Vere are one and the same.

Halvik and Kashel are still digging through Herode’s files, and Damen sets Nikandros and Pallas up on a renewed search for Nicaise before he retreats to his office with the Interpol report on Laurent de Vere.

It’s very thin. Laurent de Vere has been to Europe, but never as an adult and he’s never committed a crime there. Searching through U.S. records gets him more – a birth certificate, school enrollment, the formal adoption paperwork (an oddity there, that de Vere actually went through with an adoption rather than just assuming guardianship) – but it appears that de Vere pulled the boy out of school after he adopted him and had him homeschooled, splitting time between his residences in D.C. and New York. He took the SAT at some point in 2006, and then… nothing. There’s no record of the boy since. No high school graduation, not even a homeschooling certificate. No GED. No college enrollment. No employment history. No bank account. No credit cards. No taxes.

Laurent Crawford said he never went to high school.

Damen needs to be more meticulous about this. What’s the same? What’s different? Focus on the facts.

Laurent de Vere was born on May 22, 1991. Damen has to search the prisoner database to find Laurent Crawford’s birthday, he knows it’s in February but not the exact date – February 25, 1991. Had he just moved the numbers around and forged an ID? Can you even go to prison under a fake name? No middle name for either of them. The parents’ names listed for Laurent Crawford lead to dead ends, but he’d mentioned learning French from them. Laurent de Vere’s father was French and mother French-Canadian, the language was surely spoken at home, he’d have learned it from them as a child.

Laurent de Vere vanished into thin air at the age of sixteen. Damen can trace Laurent Crawford’s criminal history back to a small heist in 2008, when he was seventeen and still a minor. He’d stolen cash and jewels from the vault of a high-end hotel, and was on surveillance video earlier in the night chatting up an older man at the bar. Damen had always assumed prostitution as well, though he’d never asked Laurent about this particular crime. The evidence had all been circumstantial.

Damen stares at the Christmas card, propped up against his monitor. Laurent de Vere’s steady blue gaze stares out at him, almost accusing. He’s been missing, and no one had ever even noticed. No one had reported it. No one had cared enough to look for him. Laurent-Martin de Vere’s hand on his shoulder looks heavy and imposing, like it’s holding him down, but that’s just Damen’s mind making things up about a decade old photo. Halvik’s voice rings in his ears, repeating her assumption that de Vere abused his nephew as well.

He focuses on the boy’s face, compares it with Laurent’s mugshot that he’s pulled up on his computer. Laurent had looked younger than his twenty-two years when he was arrested, perhaps because unlike most mugshots he doesn’t look unkempt. His hair is longer, just barely brushing his shoulders, and manages to look artfully tousled in the photo. He’s looking at the camera like he’s bored by the entire process of being arrested.

They have the same eyes. The same slightly upturned nose. The same lips, a bit thinner on top but full on the bottom. The boy has the beginnings of the man’s sharp cheekbones and angular jaw. The man’s hair is a shade darker, more golden than the platinum blonde of childhood.

Damen normally loves putting together the clues, getting one step closer to solving the case. Right now, all he feels is sick.

\- - -

Damen doesn’t tell anyone else what he’s discovered. He can’t pinpoint why exactly. It’s a major breakthrough in the case, but he just… doesn’t. He clears the searches he’s done and tucks the Christmas card back into his briefcase, not wanting to leave it on his desk where someone else might see it, but unsure what to do with it in the meantime.

He still doesn’t know what to do about it when he walks in his front door and finds Laurent sitting on the couch with Theo. They have Damen’s laptop open on the coffee table, watching a cartoon.

“Hi Daddy!” Theo chirps, eyes still glued to the laptop.

“Hey bud. What are you watching?”

“I dunno.”

Damen looks at Laurent, who says, “ _Babar_ ,” as if that has any meaning at all to Damen.

Damen watches the screen for a moment. The cartoon looks old, has something to do with elephants, and is entirely in French. “You really take this French nanny thing seriously, don’t you?” he says to Laurent.

“Au pair,” Laurent corrects him. “And we’re doing immersion education. This is a classic. Theo, tell your father what you learned today.” He leans forward to pause the video.

Theo dutifully counts to ten in French, and then starts in about their trip to the Natural History Museum. “They really did have a T-rex,” he says, excited. “It was _huge_. But I thought it was going to be bigger, like Godzilla.”

“Godzilla is pretty big,” Damen says, shrugging out of his suit jacket and draping it over the back of a chair.

“Like a skyscraper.” Theo nods. “The T-rex wasn’t that big. Laurent said that it was a normal size for a T-rex though. And there was a really big elephant with these long tusks.” He draws out the word, miming the tusks of woolly mammoth curling out from his own face.

“That was a woolly mammoth,” Laurent tells him.

“Right,” Theo says. “And there was a big whale that was all the way up on the ceiling. Laurent said they had to hoist it up there and that it hangs from cables so that’s why it looks like it’s swimming in the air. And stuffed animals but not like regular stuffed animals. Laurent said they used to be alive but now they’re dead and stuffed full of fluff like pillows to just make them stand up and look alive, which is kind of creepy but also kind of cool. And there were _butterflies_. And we got to go inside with the butterflies and they flew all around and landed on us!”

Damen can’t help but smile at him. “Sounds like you had fun,” he says.

Theo nods happily. “Is it dinner time now? Laurent said we had to wait for you.”

“I can go,” Laurent says, starting to stand up.

“No, stay!” Theo says.

“Stay for dinner,” Damen tells him. “It’s not going to be anything fancy. Burgers okay with you?”

Laurent hesitates, but sits back down and says, “Sure.”

Damen heads towards the kitchen, rummaging in the fridge for the meat. “I owe you for the museum tickets,” he calls back to Laurent.

He can hear that the video has been turned back on, but then Laurent appears in the kitchen doorway. “I told you, you don’t have to pay me back.”

“It’s fine,” Damen says. “You saved me the cost of an emergency babysitter as it is. I owe you one.”

Laurent shrugs. “It was fine. He’s a good kid.”

Damen grins. “He’s the best kid.”

“An unbiased opinion,” Laurent says, with a slight smile.

Damen opens the fridge again and pulls out two beers, holding one up to Laurent, who shakes his head. “You want something else. There’s a bottle of red wine over there.”

“I don’t really drink,” Laurent says. “Water is fine.”

Damen fetches him a glass of water, and can’t stop himself from asking, “Any particular reason you don’t drink?”

“Never developed a taste for prison hooch,” Laurent says. Which is a non-answer, but it was a probing question to begin with so Damen takes it for the dismissal of the topic that it is.

Laurent perches himself on one of the stools across the kitchen island, leaning his elbows on the counter and wrapping his hands around the glass. “Please tell me you have a salad or something to go with those burgers.”

Damen retrieves the lettuce from the fridge. “You have to put a piece on the burger.”

“That’s doesn’t count as a salad,” Laurent says.

“It’s green,” Damen argues.

Laurent gets up and comes around the other side of the island, nudging Damen out of the way as he opens the fridge. “Out of the way, you barbarian. You’ll give us all scurvy if you cook on your own.”

Damen steps aside, taking a sip of his beer as he watches Laurent bend over to pick through the contents of the vegetable drawer. Having Laurent here, in his home, feels comfortable in a way he really wasn’t expecting.

\- - -

Damen doesn’t say anything the next day either. The card is still in his briefcase, feeling heavy as a brick. He drops Theo off at Jokaste’s, then picks up Laurent, and heads into the office. They spend the day working on leads for other shell companies. Laurent says he has a ‘source’ who has heard a rumor about another company, Fortaine Limited, that de Vere might be laundering money through.

Damen finds himself wondering if Laurent’s ‘source’ has been himself, all along, and hates that he’s questioning things like this.

“I need to meet Jord,” he tells Laurent, after lunch, when the lead on Fortaine Limited looks like it’s going to pan out.

“What?” Laurent asks.

“Your source. Jord. I need to meet him. Today.”

Laurent laughs, as if Damen is joking. “That’s not going to work.”

“Make it work,” Damen says. “Fortaine is a good lead, but I need to know for sure where this is coming from. Makedon is breathing down my neck over it.” That’s a lie, but Laurent doesn’t know it. “I need to meet him, offer something more than just you vouching for him.”

Laurent’s frowning, and doesn’t look at Damen as he says, “Fine, I’ll arrange something.”

“For today,” Damen presses. It’s already Friday.

Laurent sighs. “Sure, today.”

He stands up, and pulls out a cellphone. It’s not the same one he had the other day when he was watching Theo, but Damen doesn’t ask about it. Laurent heads out of Damen’s office, already typing out a text message.

An hour later Laurent comes back by Damen’s office, not bothering to knock as he walks in. Damen has been reading through the translation of Laurent de Vere’s blog again with a new stone in his stomach, and hastily shoves the papers underneath a folder from a mortgage fraud case.

Laurent raises an eyebrow, but just says, “Jord can meet us in thirty minutes.”

“Perfect,” Damen says, standing up fast enough that his chair goes spinning behind him and knocks into the wall.

Laurent’s still eyeing him, bemused.

“Where at?” Damen asks.

“Battery Park,” Laurent says. “He thinks the tourists will provide good cover.”

The tourists mean that parking is next to impossible and they’re late. They breeze past the salespeople hocking tickets at the entrance and Damen lets Laurent lead the way through the park, down a less used path to where a man is sitting on a bench, eating a hot dog.

“A hot dog?” Laurent says.

“I’m blending in,” the man, presumably Jord, says.

Damen stares at him. “Wait, you’re his smoking buddy.”

Both Laurent and Jord turn to look at Damen.

“From when you said you needed a smoke,” Damen explains. Come to think of it, Laurent hasn’t asked for a smoke break again since. “Do you really smoke?” he asks.

“No,” Laurent says, just the tiniest curve to the edge of his mouth.

Damen huffs out a laugh.

“Well, now you’ve seen that Jord is, indeed, real,” Laurent says. “Was there something else you needed from him?”

“To know where he’s getting this info,” Damen says.

“That’s privileged client information,” Jord says, eyes darting to Laurent.

“You’re not his lawyer,” Damen says.

“He is, actually,” Laurent says.

Damen shakes his head. He says, “No wonder you got four years for a burglary when we couldn’t prove the theft,” even though he knows for a fact that Jord was not Laurent’s lawyer during his trial four years ago. Laurent had had a public defender. They’d suspected Laurent of a number of crimes, granted, but only having enough evidence to prove one burglary had definitely led the judge to be harsher in sentencing than that crime had warranted on its own, and a good lawyer would have gotten it reduced.

Laurent shrugs. “You seized my assets. He was all I could afford.”

Jord looks disgruntled by this, but doesn’t protest. He takes a bite of his hot dog.

“Well,” Laurent says, after the pause in conversation has gone on long enough to be awkward. “Have you satisfied your curiosity? Jord is real. I didn’t make him up. He’s been my source for the information I’ve given you about the Regent, seeing as he’s able to actually _talk_ to people and not hindered by this.” He kicks his left heel again his right ankle, the heel of his shoe banging against the plastic casing of the tracking anklet under his pant leg.

“All I do is talk to them,” Jord says quickly. “It’s not illegal to talk to people.”

Damen sighs. “Stay out of trouble, Jord.” He nods to Laurent, and turns to head back out of the park. Laurent lingers for a moment, as if he’s going to say something to Jord, but must decide not to while Damen is still within hearing range and instead catches up to Damen.

“Did we waste enough taxpayer dollars on this little diversion then?” Laurent asks.

“You don’t pay taxes,” Damen says, trying for their usual banter.

Laurent smirks at him, picking up on it, but Damen feels like his own side of it rings false. Laurent de Vere had never paid taxes, because he was a ghost. A missing child, hiding from an abusive uncle. Joking about it sits like a stone in Damen's stomach.

\- - -

It’s Damen’s weekend with Theo, and when he arrives to pick him up it turns out that Jokaste’s mother is staying with her. Theo seems grateful to escape from “Yaya” and spends the car ride home narrating her latest drama for Damen. Something involving the woman’s sister, who Damen hasn’t seen since Theo’s first birthday.

They have a quiet evening, and Damen spends an hour or so after putting Theo to bed going over the case again. He’d finally sent what he had on Laurent de Vere over to Vannes with the Innocence Lost team – leaving off his suspicion that Laurent de Vere is actually Laurent Crawford now – and asked her to see if anything turned up in their database. He’s not sure if he’s hoping for results from that or not. Anything Vannes finds could be proof of crimes Laurent-Martin de Vere committed, but most of her evidence isn’t the sort of thing Damen wants to think about existing. Especially in the context of someone he knows, and considers a friend.

And when did that happen? When did Laurent go from criminal he put away to someone he _cares_ about? Cares enough that he’s hiding essential developments in the case from the rest of his team.

Damen picks up the Christmas card again. He feels like he’s stared at this damn thing for so long that he knows every detail of it. From the exact shade of Laurent de Vere’s eyes – the same blue as Laurent-Martin de Vere, which is the only familial resemblance between them – to the way the boy’s nails are bitten to the quick.

That’s different than his Laurent, Damen thinks. He keeps himself well-groomed, including his hands. But it’s a sign of a nervous habit in this photo, and Damen wonders when he stopped biting them.

He drops the card onto the coffee table and runs a hand through his hair. It’s late, and this is going nowhere. He should go to bed.

\- - -

Damen is woken from a sound sleep by the buzzing of his phone, ringing while on vibrate. He fumbles trying to grab it and nearly drops it on the floor, squinting at the time blearily. Just past two in the morning.

“Akielon,” he barks into the phone.

It’s the U.S. Marshals, informing Damen that Laurent has left his radius and is currently on the run.

_Fuck._

Damen stumbles out of bed, dragging on a t-shirt that’s hanging over the back of a chair, and heading out into the hall wearing only that and his boxers. “Okay,” he says into the phone. “Okay. Is he still wearing the tracker?”

Before he gets an answer there’s a loud knock at his door.

Damen frowns, letting the phone fall to his shoulder as he eyes the door at the end of the hallway. Who the hell is at his door at two in the morning?

He looks through the peephole, and sees a flash of blonde hair. When he opens the door Laurent is standing on the threshold, dressed casually for once, and looking over his shoulder, like he’s expecting someone to be chasing him. When he turns to the door, his eyes are wide.

Damen stares, dumbfounded. “How did you get upstairs?” he asks. Which isn’t the question he’d planned on at all.

“Your lobby door is easy to pick,” Laurent says. “I–“

There’s some noise from Damen’s phone, which reminds him the marshals are still on the line. He raises the phone again and says, “It’s fine, Crawford is with me.”

“What?” the person on the phone asks.

“He’s with me,” Damen repeats. “I’ve authorized him to be outside his radius.”

There’s a long pause, and for a moment Damen thinks they won’t buy it, but then they say, “Next time, please set that up beforehand.”

“I’ll do that,” Damen says. Then he hangs up, and focuses back on Laurent. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry,” Laurent says. “I shouldn’t have come here. Sorry.” He takes a step back, and looks almost on the verge of running away.

Damen reaches out to stop him, hand coming to rest on Laurent’s arm. “Come inside,” he says.

Laurent follows him in, still hesitating.

“What happened?” Damen asks. “Are you okay?” He starts ushering Laurent towards the living room, and Laurent goes where’s he’s led like he’s unsure what else to do.

Then Damen turns to flick the lamp on, and when he turns back he finds Laurent standing over the coffee table, staring down at the papers Damen had left scattered there – including that Christmas card.

“Where did you get this?” Laurent asks.

Not _what’s this_ or _who is that_ , making it clear Laurent knows the answers to those questions. He wants to know how Damen got it.

“It was in with Herode’s papers,” Damen says.

Laurent is staring at the card like it’s a bomb about to go off. Maybe it is. The secret feels like one, sitting between them now.

Damen clears his throat. “Do you… want to tell me about it?”

Laurent looks back up at him. “About what?” he asks, expression guarded.

Damen glances back at the card, trying to think of how to approach this. What _is_ the best way to confront someone with the past they’ve been running away from for a decade?

“Is there something you want to tell me,” Damen starts again, “about a boy who…” He pauses, trying to think how to word it. “Who needed to get away from his uncle. And so he ran away. Hypothetically,” he throws in, using Laurent’s favorite way of deflecting. “And he started stealing stuff, maybe to survive at first, but later it was partly because of the thrill. And he got caught. And went to prison. And now he’s back out trying to put his uncle in prison.”

Laurent’s been staring at the card this whole time, but looks up at Damen now. “You are very bad at this,” he says. “Didn’t they give you training in how to talk to people at FBI school?”

Damen laughs a bit. “Am I right though? Are you Laurent de Vere?”

Laurent looks away again, briefly, then seems to steel himself. “Yes,” he says. He glances back at the card. “You figured it out just from that?”

“Partly,” Damen says. “But then I started looking for him. For you. And that’s when it fell into place.” He waits a moment, but when Laurent stays silent he adds, lightly, “Plus you were so particular about that poetry.”

Laurent looks up at him, incredulous. Damen’s not sure if it’s at the situation as a whole or at his attempt to lighten the mood, either is a possibility.

“It was being translated _wrong_ ,” Laurent insists. “I would know; I wrote it.”

There’s another lull, as Laurent’s attention is caught by the card again. Damen asks, “So why are you here tonight? It wasn’t just to confess all your deep dark secrets was it?”

Laurent crosses his arms over his chest. “No, that’s just an added bonus to my night,” he grouses. “My uncle sent one of his goons to Torveld’s.”

Damen instantly feels on high alert at the mention of a threat. “Goon?”

“Govart,” Laurent says.

Damen stares. “The earring guy?”

“They were never _his_ earrings,” Laurent hisses. “They were mine to begin with. You can’t steal something that’s given to you.”

“Given?” Damen asks, mind reeling as it suddenly starts connecting some of the other dots. Govart reported the earrings stolen ten years ago. Laurent is the one who stole them. He held on to them long enough that Nicaise wound up with them, and pawned them. “Who gave you ten thousand dollar earrings?”

“My uncle, who else?” Laurent says, with a slight shake of his head.

Damen doesn’t ask why Laurent’s uncle gave him expensive jewelry; he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear the answer. “And Govart showed up at your place tonight?” A slight nod from Laurent. “Why?”

Laurent hesitates. “My uncle might be under the impression that I’m planning to make a run for it,” he finally says.

“But you’re not,” Damen says. “Cos you’re helping us. You’re on work release for four years.”

“Yes, obviously.”

Damen watches him. Laurent’s fingers start to twitch as if to catch the edge of his jacket cuff, but then relax. “And you were planning on running,” Damen says.

“He is under that impression,” Laurent says. “He made it clear he would rather I stay put.” He paces a few steps. “He wants me to _spy_ or something, for him.”

“Spy on the FBI?” Damen asks.

Laurent nods. “Feed you false information, let him know if you’re getting close to any of his interests…” He laughs, but there’s a hysterical edge to it. “He said I’d finally found a way to be useful again.”

Damen’s stomach twists. “You can help me put him away for good,” he says. “Laurent, whatever he’s done to you–“

Damen is about to say that it’s enough to put Laurent’s uncle behind bars for a long time, but stops himself. The statute of limitations would have passed, in Laurent’s case, for the kind of child abuse they’re carefully not discussing.

Laurent cuts him off sharply anyway. “There’s no proof of anything,” he says. “Don’t you think I tried that? Years ago? Why do you think I resorted to running away? No.” He shakes his head. “That’s not going to work. I’ve been trying to help you find his actual shady business dealings but you’ve been focusing too much on the shit you can’t prove.”

“I’ve been focused on all of it,” Damen says

Laurent keeps pacing between the coffee table and the couch. It’s making Damen feel agitated just watching him. “No,” he says again. “You haven’t. Or you’d have figured out what he’s doing with Fortaine by now.”

“What’s he doing with Fortaine?”

“I don’t know!” Laurent throws his hands up, spinning to face Damen. “I just remember the name. I remember him talking about it with one of his friends. He never thought I paid any attention to what they were discussing. I don’t know what he actually _did_ with it though, that’s what I need _you_ for. You’re supposed to figure it out.”

Any other time, Laurent’s absolute faith in Damen’s ability to solve the case would be heartwarming. Right now, it just feels like a condemnation. _Why haven’t you caught him yet?_ The same thing victims of crimes always ask Damen.

Damen runs a hand through his hair, and his eye catches on the clock. It had been just after two o’clock when he’d been woken by the call from the marshals, and it’s nearly two thirty now. He’s exhausted.

“Look, let’s talk more in the morning,” Damen says. “You can stay here tonight. You’ll be safe.”

Laurent frowns, wary. “Are you sure?”

Damen’s not sure if he’s asking about staying or about being safe here, but he says, “Yes. Wait here.” He heads back down the hall to the linen closet, digging out a set of sheets and a blanket. There’s a throw pillow on the couch that he knows for a fact is comfortable enough to nap on. When he comes back Laurent has sat down on the couch, perched on the edge. He stands back up when he sees Damen.

“You can sleep on the couch,” Damen tells him, holding out the bedding.

Laurent takes it with a quiet thanks. He shrugs out of his jacket, leaving him in jeans and a t-shirt. Which will be uncomfortable to sleep in, Damen thinks, retreating back down the hallway to his own room. He comes back this time with some sweatpants and a t-shirt, and offers those to Laurent as well.

Laurent frowns. “You’re twice as wide as me,” he says.

“They have a drawstring,” Damen says, having thought of that when the first pair he’d found had an elastic waistband. “It’s more comfortable than jeans.”

Laurent takes the clothes.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Damen says, not waiting to see if Laurent gets settled in. He wants to wait, wants to make sure Laurent is tucked in and comfortable and has everything he needs, but Laurent’s shoulders are tense, and he’s stop meeting Damen’s eye, and Damen’s pretty sure it’s time to give him some space.

He’ll check on him in the morning. And hopefully they can figure out what to do from here.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rotenkehl has done some amazing art for this chapter [here!](http://rotenkehl.tumblr.com/post/180957383264/capri-bigbang2k18-a-kansas-city-shuffle-by) Featuring baby Theo! Go check it out! :D

Damen’s not sure what he’s expecting to find the next morning, but it’s not Laurent standing at the stove, cooking, while Theo sits on one of the stools, twisting from side to side and chatting about what he did at preschool on the day before.

“And then she made me sit out at recess _again_ ,” Theo complains. “Just because I called Max an asshole.”

“Is he an asshole?” Laurent asks, seriously.

“Yes,” Theo says.

“Well, next time, you’ll have to make sure she’s not in hearing distance when you tell him so,” Laurent says. “You can’t get in trouble if she can’t prove you said it.”

Theo looks thoughtful. “What if Max tells on me?”

“Then it’s his word against yours,” Laurent says. “You will have to make sure you are more believable.”

“What are you doing?” Damen asks, before Laurent can give his son more lessons on evading preschool punishments.

Laurent turns towards him, startled, which is when Damen sees that he’s wearing an old apron that says _Kiss the Cook_ and holding a spatula. He’s also wearing the sweats that Damen had given him last night, but with his own t-shirt. They hang off his hips, even with the drawstring pulled tight.

“Making pancakes,” Laurent says.

“With _chocolate chips_ ,” Theo adds, excited.

“I said no to the whipped cream,” Laurent adds.

Damen looks between them, and finds himself smiling. “Why? Chocolate chip pancakes need whipped cream.”

Laurent raises an eyebrow. “Well, if you two want a sugar rush then by all means…”

The pancakes are delicious, and Damen does let Theo add a bit whipped cream to his as well. He’ll be running around on a sugar high for the rest of the morning, but Laurent is smiling as he listens to Theo’s talk – something about a dog, possibly from a television show – and after the way last night had gone Damen is grateful for this small bit of normality. Or, as normal as having a felon on work-release in his house cooking breakfast for his kid can be, anyway.

It’s not until Damen has sent Theo off to play to get him out from underfoot, explaining that he and Laurent just going to do boring adult things like wash the dishes, that Damen even attempts to broach the topic of what they’d spoken of last night. He starts with a question that had nagged at him as he’d tried to go sleep.

“How did you go to prison under an alias?”

It shouldn’t have been possible. Somewhere, at some point, someone should have figured it out. Prints should have come back, showing that Laurent Crawford didn’t exist before roughly 2007. They should have known the birth certificate was forged.

“I paid taxes,” Laurent says, running a plate under the faucet and swiping at it with a sponge. He holds it out to Damen, who takes it numbly and starts drying by rote.

“Taxes?”

“Yesterday,” Laurent says, “you said I didn’t pay taxes. But I did, under the name Crawford. Between that and a birth certificate filed in the right place, no one ever questioned it.” He looks at Damen. “That dish is dry.”

Damen looks down at the plate. It is indeed dry now, and he sets it down on the counter hastily. “I can’t believe you got away with that.”

“I can’t believe I actually paid legitimate taxes for a job I didn’t work at,” Laurent says, turning back to the sink.

“The secretary thing?” Damen asks, thinking of the comment Laurent had made on his first day of work with the white collar division.

Laurent watches him from the corner of one eye. “No,” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate.

Laurent hands him the last dish, then turns the faucet off and turns toward Damen, hip propped against the counter and arms crossed. “What else do you want to ask?”

Damen frowns, staring blankly ahead at the backsplash as he thinks. He _wants_ to ask a million questions, but he can tell from Laurent’s tone that he’s not going to get the chance for that many before Laurent starts evading the truth again. That he’s been this open already is rare, and feels like an opportunity Damen needs to hold in hands as carefully as a glass bauble.

He decides to focus on the case. “Tell me about your uncle.”

Laurent blanches, and Damen quickly says, “I mean, what do you know about his business? Is there anything you haven’t told me because you were trying to hide how close you were to it?”

Laurent frowns. “Like I said last night, he didn’t tell me much of it. I know he’s laundering money through some of those companies, but I don’t know _where_ the dirty money’s coming from. I always just assumed it was people paying him for drugs and prostitutes.”

“Not a bad assumption,” Damen says.

“I know he uses that as blackmail when he needs something done in Washington.” His expression looks a bit ruthless. “I can’t say I feel that bad for the men he’s blackmailing.”

“Not even Berenger Marron?” Damen asks. “He seemed nice.”

“He was sleeping with a prostitute.”

“But not an underage one.”

“You have no idea when Ancel got started doing it,” Laurent points out.

“No,” Damen agrees. “But he was defending Marron too. My impression was they just got caught up in it, not that they were the bad guys.”

Laurent shakes his head, but concedes, “Maybe.”

Damen turns back to the counter. “More coffee?” he asks, already starting to fix himself another.

“With cream and sugar,” Laurent says.

Once they’re sitting across from each other at the table, Damen sipping at his coffee and Laurent just wrapping his hands around his mug, holding onto it, Damen tries asking about the case again.

“This thing last night,” he says. “What did you mean your uncle wants you to spy for him?”

Laurent stares into his coffee mug. “He wants me to give you false leads. Something to get you off the trail of Fortaine Limited.”

“In other words, Fortaine Limited is what we should be looking into.”

Laurent smirks. “Clearly.”

\- - -

The day actually passes quickly, for a Saturday. Mid-afternoon, Damen sneaks away to call Pallas, and ask for an update on the case.

“It’s Saturday, boss,” Pallas says.

“Yes,” Damen says.

There’s a pause, and then Pallas says, “I haven’t heard any updates from anyone since Friday afternoon’s briefing. Why? Did you find something?”

“I’d like you to check up on Govart,” Damen says. “I think the Regent is using him as muscle, to intimidate people.”

“The earring guy? From Laurent’s escape?”

“Yeah. We knew he had a wealthy benefactor. I think it’s the Regent.”

“I can look into it,” Pallas says. “How urgent is this?”

“I want an update on Monday,” Damen tells him.

To his credit, Pallas doesn’t complain.

Most of Damen’s day passes in domesticity. Theo spends the day showing Laurent his toys, which apparently he had not gotten the chance to do sufficiently when Laurent had babysat. This leads to Laurent helping him color in a book about Spider-Man, while offering more advice for how to deal with the preschool teacher Theo keeps complaining about.

“She can’t be that bad,” Damen protests, eavesdropping from the kitchen where he’s trying to decide what to cook for dinner. He’s debating just ordering a pizza. It’s already been a fairly unhealthy food day, but maybe he should go all-in on it? They’d had a light lunch. He has stuff to make a salad for Laurent.

There’s no response from the other room. Damen digs through the junk drawer, looking for the pizza delivery menus, and takes them into the living room.

“How abou–“ He stops, when he sees Laurent and Theo bent over a coloring book on the coffee table, talking seriously. There’s a movie playing on the TV – Spider-Man, Damen thinks – but they’re not paying attention to it.

“Even if she is a grown-up,” Laurent is telling Theo, voice low and serious, “that doesn’t mean you always have to do everything she says.”

“She’s a teacher though,” Theo says.

“Well, you _should_ be able to trust her then,” Laurent says. “But sometimes you can’t trust even teachers or other grown-ups. So if anyone is telling you to do something you know is wrong, or that you think you shouldn’t, or that just feels bad, then you should tell your dad. He’s a good guy. He’ll take care of it.”

“Cos he’s an FBI agent?” Theo asks.

“Partly,” Laurent says.

“Hey,” Damen says finally, clearing his throat. Laurent and Theo’s heads both jerk around to look up at him. “What are you two doing?” Damen asks.

“Coloring,” Laurent says.

“Laurent is really good at coloring,” Theo says. He holds up the coloring book. “Look he showed me how to mix the colors together.”

Laurent has evidently showed Theo how to blend two different blues in the background for sky, and has helped him make the clouds look puffy.

“That looks really good, kiddo,” Damen says. Theo beams at him. Damen holds up the menus. “Pizza for dinner?”

Yes!” Theo yells, which covers for the face that Laurent pulls.

“I have the fixings for salad too, don’t worry,” Damen tells him.

“You don’t just want to put a single piece of lettuce on your pizza?” Laurent asks.

“That’s for burgers,” Damen tells him seriously. “I have some carrots. We usually just dip them in hummus, but you could, I don’t know, slice them up and put them in a salad or something weird like that.”

Laurent is staring at him, mock-horrified.

Damen grins back at him. “I know Theo wants pepperoni. What do you want on your pizza?”

“Veggie,” Laurent says.

\- - -

As evening turns into night, Damen works to wrangle an overtired Theo into bed while also convincing Laurent to stay another night. They’d watched a movie after dinner and it’s gone past Theo’s normal bedtime, so trying to get him to take a bath and calm down enough to sleep is much easier said than done.

Meanwhile Laurent keeps glancing toward the door, like he’s planning to leave.

“You can stay again tonight,” Damen says.

“I already feel like I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Laurent says.

“You haven’t,” Damen says. “And Torveld’s isn’t safe for you right now. I’d rather you were somewhere secure.”

Laurent relents, and has already started settling the sheets onto the couch when Damen chases Theo down the hall with a towel after his bath. He’d gotten him into pajamas, but his hair is still dripping wet.

Theo skids to a stop in the living room, looking at the couch. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“Setting up my bed,” Laurent says.

“But… you can’t sleep on the couch.”

Laurent frowns. “I slept here last night.”

Theo turns to Damen. “Daddy. Laurent can’t sleep on the couch.”

“Why not?” Damen asks.

“Because you _like_ him!” Theo wails, working his way towards a full-blown tantrum. “He can’t sleep there if you _like_ him.”

“You’re not making any sense, bud,” Damen tells him. “Laurent is staying with us because he can’t stay at his house right now. He’s staying here _because_ we like him.”

“Thanks,” Laurent throws in.

Damen shakes his head, bemused.

Theo starts wailing in earnest, and Damen is regretting letting the movie they’d been watching go past bedtime with every second that passes. “But you _can’t_ . Mommy only makes Uncle Kastor sleep on the couch when she doesn’t like him and he’s in the doghouse. You _like_ Laurent. You _said_ that you liked him and he’s _really_ nice and he plays with me and he never gets sick of me…” Theo trails off into tears.

“Oh, baby,” Damen kneels down, pulling Theo towards him into a hug. His wet hair starts soaking through Damen’s shirt immediately as Theo rests his head against Damen’s chest, clinging to him. “That’s not why Laurent is sleeping on the couch. Laurent is my _friend_.” He places a careful emphasis on the word friend, and doesn’t look at Laurent over Theo’s shoulder. “He likes sleeping on the couch. He has blankets and pillows and it’s very comfy.”

Theo pulls back. “No,” he insists, drawing out the word into a moan. “You’re mad at him. He didn’t even _do_ anything. You can’t be mad if he didn’t _do_ anything. You’re the one who said it’s wrong to punish people who didn’t do anything bad.”

Damen takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment. He is going to have _words_ with Jokaste for giving his son a complex about having someone sleep on the couch. If that’s going on then Kastor shouldn’t even be staying over. He hadn’t even known they were back together.

“Okay,” Damen says. “I’m not mad at Laurent. He’s not being punished for anything.” At least, aside from the things that the federal government is punishing him for, Damen thinks. “How about he sleeps in my bed, and _I_ sleep on the couch?”

“No!” Theo wails.

“Fine,” Damen says. “Okay, no one will sleep on the couch. Laurent will sleep in my room.” He stalks over to the couch to snatch up Laurent’s pillow, and heads down the hall to his own bedroom, a tearful Theo trailing after him and Laurent watching from the entrance to the living room.

“Do I have a say in this?” Laurent asks.

“No,” Damen says. “No one gets a say in this. The sleepy five-year-old is running the show.”

Laurent and Theo both watch as Damen tosses Laurent’s pillow onto Damen’s bed. “There,” he says. “Laurent is going to sleep in my room. With me. Can we all go to bed now.”

Theo is eyeing him warily. “You’re not going to move after I go sleep, are you?”

Behind him, Laurent covers his mouth with his hand as he tries not to laugh.

Damen sighs. “No, because you are clearly way too smart for me. Seriously, buddy, it’s bedtime now. Laurent isn’t in trouble. I’m not mad at him. We are just friends.”

“Friends who are going to sleep in the same bed tonight,” Laurent says. Damen looks at him, and Laurent’s grin is practically shiteating.

“Yes, exactly,” Damen says.

Theo’s stopped crying now, mollified, but is still refusing to go to sleep. Laurent hovers in the hallway, before finally coming inside the bedroom.

“Theo,” he says. “I have something to show you. But you have to go to sleep right after, or it won’t work.”

Theo frowns at him, sitting cross-legged on his bed. “What is it?”

“Magic,” Laurent says.

Theo looks intrigued despite himself. Laurent holds out a hand to Damen. “I need a quarter.”

“I don’t have my wallet.”

Laurent opens and closes his hand. “Quarter,” he says. “And then I will show you a magic trick.”

Damen sighs, but goes to get his wallet. He returns and drops a quarter into Laurent’s waiting hand.

Laurent shows the quarter to Theo, turning it between his fingers, then he sets it in his palm, closing his fingers over it, and when he opens his hand again the coin is gone.

Theo reaches for Laurent’s hand. “Where did it go?”

Laurent raises both hands, waving his fingers. “It’s gone,” he says. “Magic.” He waves his hand again for emphasis. “But maybe it’s back...” He reaches behind Theo’s ear, and when he pulls his hand back the coin is back in his fingers. “Here!”

Theo reaches for the quarter, and Laurent lets him take it. “How did you do that?” Theo asks.

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Laurent says. “But now it’s time for you to go sleep. You promised. That’s the only reason the magic worked.”

Theo frowns, as if aware that he’s been played, but lays down. “You have to show me tomorrow.”

“We’ll see,” Laurent says. “Good night.”

“Night, Laurent.”

Laurent turns to leave then, and when Damen joins him out in the hallway a minute later, he waits until Damen closes Theo’s door to say, “See, magic.”

Damen laughs, shaking his head. “I remember why I always double check for my wallet around you.” He turns toward his own room. “I can take the couch,” he offers, as Laurent follows him.

Laurent frowns. “You don’t think he’d figure us out?”

“Oh god,” Damen collapses to sit on the edge of the bed and not answering the question. The answer is yes, Theo would figure them out. He doesn’t want to think about _that_ tantrum. “That was a mess. I’m sorry. I don’t know where he got that idea.” He runs his hands through his hair, resting his elbows on his knees.

“It’s alright,” Laurent says.

“No, really,” Damen says. “I’ll talk to Jokaste about it too.”

“It’s okay,” Laurent says again. “Kids have wild imaginations.”

“Imagination, yeah,” Damen says. He looks up, and finds Laurent standing much closer than he had been.

“I just wouldn’t want him to think we lied to him,” Laurent says. “He trusts you. That’s important. If he thinks you lied to him then he might not trust you with other things.”

Damen stares up at him. Laurent is really standing very close.

“It’s a big enough bed for us both, anyway,” Laurent says.

“Sure,” Damen says, finally finding his voice.

Which is how Damen and Laurent wind up lying next to each other in Damen’s bed, both on their backs, with a foot of space between them.

“Goodnight, Damen,” Laurent says.

“‘Night,” Damen tells him.

\- - -

Damen normally sleeps in the nude, or, when Theo is home, boxers, but since Laurent is sharing his bed he’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts, for decency’s sake. Which is why it comes as no surprise when he wakes up in the wee hours of the night, sweating.

It _is_ a surprise that he’s pressed up against Laurent, spooning him from behind. And that Laurent is using one hand to hold onto Damen’s arm, wrapped around his stomach, rather than to roll over and strangle Damen in his sleep.

Damen’s so surprised that he jerks away from Laurent, too fast, and winds up waking Laurent up. Laurent sits up fast, blinking around in confusion, before twisting around and seeing Damen.

“Um, hi,” Damen says.

Laurent’s hair is tousled from sleep, haloed around his head, and he frowns at Damen. “Why are we awake?”

“Sorry,” Damen says. “I was hot.”

“Were you?”

There’s a note in Laurent’s tone that Damen’s too tired to parse through, so he just nods and starts shoving the covers off his hips, bouncing around until he winds up lying on top of them. Laurent is still under the blankets, and raises an eyebrow.

“It’s just because I’m hot,” Damen insists.

“Okay,” Laurent says. He lays back down and rolls over onto his side. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Me too.”

“Alright.”

Damen wonders if he should say good night again, but decides against it. He still feels too warm, even with the blankets off. Except his feet are cold. He kicks the top blanket around, trying to arrange it to just cover his feet.

Laurent doesn’t twitch. “Are you going to do this all night?”

“Sorry.” Damen gets the blanket over his feet. There. Now he can sleep.

\- - -

Damen doesn’t wake again until morning, and this time not only is he plastered up against Laurent’s back again, spooning him, he’s also hard as a rock. He rocks his hips sleepily against Laurent’s ass before his sleep-addled mind puts two and two together and comes up with _holy shit_ and jerks away from Laurent like he’s been singed.

The movement wakes Laurent up. Or maybe Laurent was already awake. _Please let him have been asleep_ , Damen prays. He sits up, blinking at Damen in confusion just like he did in the middle of the night.

“You’re a very restless sleeper,” Laurent says.

“Oh, uh… yes,” Damen says. “Sorry about that.”

“Bad dreams?”

“Um. No. Just… overheated.”

Laurent tilts his head that way he always does when considering something that doesn’t make sense, like a bird. “You usually sleep in the nude, don’t you?”

Damen can feel the blush on his cheeks. He gets out of bed, heading toward the door quickly. “How about breakfast? Something nutritious today? Eggs? Yogurt?”

Before he can open the door, it opens on its own; he barely steps back in time to avoid being hit in the face. Theo barrels in and skids to a stop, looking between them. “Morning!” he chirps, as if he hadn’t been an absolute terror just eight hours ago. He climbs onto the bed and presses himself against Laurent’s side. “Can you make pancakes again?”

“Your dad said we have to eat a healthy breakfast,” Laurent says. “He feels bad about all the junk food he fed us yesterday.”

Theo looks up at Damen, pouting.

“Eggs?” Damen offers.

Theo makes a face.

“You can have cereal,” he says.

Theo agrees to that, and jumps back off the bed, heading towards the kitchen. Laurent follows him, fingers combing through his hair, and asks Damen, “Eggs?”

“I make a mean frittata,” Damen promises.

\- - -

Sunday passes much the same as Saturday did, with the noted difference that Laurent borrows some of Damen’s clothing to wear while he washes his own. It’s distracting, even though Damen knows it shouldn’t be. He’s almost sorry once Laurent’s clothes are dry and he changes back into them.

That night Damen gives up on wearing the shirt, thinking that surely he won’t overheat this time, but he still wakes several times with Laurent in his arms, and when he finally wakes up in the morning it’s to find himself lying on his back with Laurent trying to carefully extract himself from where he was evidently laying across Damen, using his chest as a pillow.

Laurent’s still hovering over Damen and his entire face turns bright pink when he realizes Damen’s awake, the blush extending down his neck. “Good morning,” he says, voice carefully formal. He sits back on his knees quickly.

Damen’s just glad it’s the other way around this morning. And also glad that the blanket is high enough across his hips to hide the erection that Laurent sleeping against him must have caused. “Morning,” he says, scooting carefully to the side.

Laurent seems to have decided that ignoring the position they woke up in means it didn’t happen. “I slept better than the night before, you?” he asks, climbing out of bed and looking in the mirror, running his fingers through his hair to straighten it.

“Uh, sure,” Damen says, watching him. Laurent has bent over, and the sweatpants he’s borrowed from Damen sit very low on his hips. _Obscenely_ low. They should not be allowed to sit that low. They’re barely covering the swell of his ass. And they’re an old pair, worn thin and clinging to every curve. “Much better,” Damen mumbles.

“Which is good,” Laurent continues, “since we have work today.”

“Right.”

“I’ll need to go back by Torveld’s to get dressed. I can’t wear jeans to the office.”

“Uh huh.”

“He had several suits tailored for me. And I can pick up more casual clothes as well if you really think I’ll be staying here until this case is solved. And some toiletries. You’ve just got that co-wash stuff which makes sense given your hair type but it weighs mine down too much; I need regular shampoo. And my own razor. Not that I mind the disposable, that’s all we had in prison, but Torveld got me a nice one and if I could I’d really rather– Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

Damen shakes his head. Laurent has his hands on his hips, standing in front of the mirror and glaring at Damen. “Yes,” Damen tries.

“What did I say?”

“You want to go to Torveld’s.”

Laurent frowns. “Before work.”

“We can do that,” Damen says.

They drop Theo off first, then Damen waits downstairs at Torveld’s house while Laurent gets dressed and packs a bag. It feels like it takes him awhile, but only because it leaves Damen trying to make small talk with Torveld. He’s curious where Laurent has been, and Damen has to make up an excuse about late nights working on the case.

When they finally make it into the office, Damen pulls Pallas in to question him on what he’s found.

“Not much, boss,” Pallas says. “If it is the Regent pulling Govart’s strings, he’s careful to not leave any trace.”

“He must have left something.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“I have a source,” Damen says. “I’m certain the Regent is Govart’s benefactor, and that he’s using Govart to intimidate people into staying quiet about his activities. We just need to catch him at it.”

“Or we need something compelling enough to make Govart flip,” Pallas says.

Damen frowns, looking out the window. “What do we have on Fortaine Limited so far?”

“We know they’re dirty,” Pallas says. “But we don’t have proof. We’re going to need inside access to the records to find proof.”

Damen watches the comings and going in the bullpen below them thoughtfully. “An undercover op?”

“Who are you going to send in?”

Laurent glances up towards Damen’s office, and Damen steps out onto the balcony, motioning for him to come upstairs.


	10. Chapter 9

The next day, Damen wakes up spooning Laurent again. He decides to give it up as inevitable at this point. It doesn’t have to _mean_ anything. It just means that Laurent is a warm body in his bed and that Damen has been single for way too long.

He’d thought he’d be back to sleeping alone, but last night he and Laurent had looked at the couch, both stumbled over offering to sleep there, and finally Damen had said, “My bed is really more comfortable. Better for your back.”

“I wouldn’t want to kick you out,” Laurent had said.

“Well, we’ve already shared two nights,” Damen had said. “We can share a few more until this case is solved and it’s safe for you to go back to Torveld’s.”

“If you’re sure,” Laurent had said.

Damen had said he was, and they’d fallen asleep with the usual foot of space between them, only to wake with not even a centimeter remaining.

Just a warm body, Damen thinks resolutely. It doesn’t mean anything at all.

They have to remove Laurent’s anklet for his undercover mission, and Damen can’t help but worry. This is the first time Laurent has been ‘off leash’, so to speak, since being released from prison. He could run at any moment, and unless they caught it on surveillance they wouldn’t know until he missed a check-in. Laurent is wearing a wire, which should really alleviate most of Damen’s worry – he can hear every word Laurent says, as well as every word said to him – but it still settles in his gut like a stone.

“What’s with you?” Nikandros asks, as they man the unmarked utility van that hides the FBI surveillance operation parked down the street from the offices of Fortaine Limited.

“What?” Damen asks, then just keeps from cringing at the look Nikandros is giving him. They’ve known each other since training classes in Quantico. Nik knows him better than anyone. Damen should have said _nothing_.

Nikandros tilts his headset so that it’s only covering one ear. “You’ve been weird all week,” he says.

“No, I haven’t.”

Nikandros raises an eyebrow.

Damen slouches in his chair, eyes on the monitor displaying what’s going on outside the van. Laurent had gone inside three hours ago, and based on the audio feed had completed his temp training two hours ago. He’s been fairly quiet for the past hour, just generic office sounds filtering in. That must be why Nikandros is asking Damen about this. The van boredom is getting to him.

“You aren’t worried about Crawford, are you?” Nikandros asks. “He once bluffed an entire bank into thinking he was a teller for a day while he copied checks. I think he can handle office temping while looking for dodgy expense reports.”

“We never proved that,” Damen says.

“Now you sound like him.”

“I do not.”

“You really do,” Nikandros says, spinning his chair a bit. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”

“I have to,” Damen says. “I’m his handler.”

The look Nikandros gives him tells Damen that he sees straight through that answer. “We’ve had CIs before. No one has been this… _involved_ with them.”

“They haven’t been on this kind of work release program,” Damen argues. “Laurent is a special case.”

Nikandros stops just short of rolling his eyes. “Okay, if you say so.”

“I do.”

“I think you’re too close,” he says.

“Your opinion is duly noted,” Damen tells him.

“And ignored?”

“Don’t push it.”

Nik holds his hands up, then spins his chair back around to face his own monitor, a clear end to the conversation.

Damen stares at the monitor in front of him without really seeing it. The problem is, Nikandros isn’t _wrong_. He is too close. He knows it. He still hasn’t told anyone else that Laurent is really de Vere’s nephew, which was walking the line to begin with, and having Laurent stay in house, in his _bed_ , is a step so far over that Damen can’t even see where the damn line _is_ anymore. He keeps thinking he’s going to regret it, but then Laurent will turn to him with one of those rare, _real_ smiles and Damen doesn’t regret a thing.

\- - -

The only burst of excitement in the day comes late in the afternoon, when Laurent apparently hasn’t found what he’s looking for yet and flirts his way into the CEO’s office via the man’s son. The CEO’s son, Rueven, doesn’t know what hit him, and Damen finds himself clenching his fists listening to the entire exchange. Laurent is _good_ at this. _Too good_ , Damen thinks. Once he’s in the office, he convinces Rueven to leave him alone and go get them drinks. “Something to help us relax,” Laurent calls it.

“He’s good at this,” Nikandros says.

Damen grits his teeth, and hunches over as he listens in.

After another minute that feels like fifteen, Laurent says, “Jackpot. Damen, how do I get these to you? Oh, you can’t answer can you? This isn’t two-way. He has a fax machine, I’m going to fax it to your office. It’s a good thing I used one of these that time I was a secretary for… well it doesn’t matter who it was, does it? Also good that I memorized your fax number so that I could send you those letters from prison. I was really thinking ahead there.”

_You need to shut up_ , Damen thinks. _Before Rueven comes back._

Laurent must finish the fax just before Rueven returns. “Oh, thanks darling,” he says. There’s an exaggerated sniff over the mic. “Is this twenty year? You know, forty year is really more my thing.”

“It’s scotch,” Rueven says.

“Yes, but I have discerning taste. Could you be a dear and see if your father has anything better in his stores. I’m sure he does.”

“Is he for real?” Nikandros asks.

There’s silence from the mic, then Laurent says, “Okay, he’s gone. Can I bail on this now? I’m gonna bail. I’m sick of office work. It’s bad for my skin. It causes wrinkles.”

Nikandros looks incredulous. “Damen, stop him.”

“He got what we needed,” Damen points out.

Ten minutes later, Laurent opens the door of the van and pops his head in. “Hey guys!”

“You can’t bail on an undercover op like that,” Nikandros admonishes him.

Laurent steps inside, closing the door behind him, and makes a show of brushing invisible lint from his jacket. “Rueven was expecting me to suck him off in that office for a promotion. Sorry, I don’t do prostitution. Not even for the the FBI.”

Damen’s not sure what to say to that, and settles on, “No one would ever ask you to go that far.”

Laurent ignores him. “The fax should be back at the office.”

“Let’s go then,” Nikandros says.

“Can we grab a sandwich first?” Laurent asks. “I didn’t get a lunch break, and I’m starving.”

“I’ll take him,” Damen says. “You head on back,” he tells Nikandros.

“There’s a deli two blocks from here that’s good,” Laurent says.

“Sure,” Damen says. He holds up Laurent’s anklet. “But first.”

Laurent frowns. “Oh. Right.” He drops down to sit in the chair Nikandros left, lifting his heel to rest on the desk in front of Damen as the anklet is snapped back into place.

They walk to a deli nearby, and don’t really talk as they wait for their order. Damen’s back is to the door, watching the guy make his sandwich, but Laurent is watching the door and suddenly says, “Oh no.”

“What?” Damen asks.

“Kiss me,” Laurent says.

“ _What?_ ”

Then Laurent reaches forward, grabbing Damen by the front of his suit jacket, and pulls him in. The kiss that Laurent bestows upon him is nothing like what Damen expects. For one thing, he’s not ready at all. His mouth is open, but in surprise, and Laurent’s lips are closed against it. Until they’re not, opening gently under Damen’s lips, tongue darting out brush against his lower lip and lick.

Damen’s arms are stuck at his sides, at a loss for what to do. What should he do? Should he touch Laurent? Laurent has his hands gripped into Damen’s jacket, hold firm as he pulls Damen forward and down. Damen’s eyes are open, staring uncomprehendingly at Laurent’s face, so close he can’t focus on anything but a blur of pale skin and blonde eyelashes and hair, then he has the presence of mind to close them, and to lean forward that little bit more. His tongue darts forward too, brushing against Laurent’s closed lips, and Laurent makes a small noise.

Then Laurent is pulling away, and Damen is leaning after him, chasing more of that sweet taste he’d just barely had. Laurent’s hand goes from fisting his jacket to resting against his chest, gently pushing him back.

“He’s gone,” Laurent says.

Damen stares down at him, not understanding.

“Rueven was here,” Laurent says.

“Who?”

Laurent rolls his eyes, taking a step back, away from Damen now. “The son of Guion, CEO of Fortaine Limited and prime suspect as accomplice to my uncle? Is this ringing a bell?”

It is now, but Damen’s brain still feels like mush. “Why did you kiss me?” he asks.

“To distract him.”

Damen stares at him.

“Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable,” Laurent explains. “Ruevan didn’t even notice it was me.”

Damen keeps staring.

“Are you okay?” Laurent asks.

“Fine,” Damen manages. “I’m fine. Is our food ready?” He turns toward the counter. “Is our order ready? Please?”

Behind him, he thinks he hears Laurent snickering.

\- - -

The papers Laurent has faxed over are solid evidence that Guion Fortaine, CEO of Fortaine Limited, is involved in money laundering. It’s enough to bring him in, which they do the next morning, along with his eldest son Rueven, who helps manage the company. Rueven spends the whole arrest giving Laurent hurt puppy dog eyes, which Laurent studiously ignores. By the time Guion and all his higher-ups have been questioned and detained, it’s late afternoon and Damen is riding high on the feeling of making major progress in a case.

He suggests going out for a late lunch to Laurent, who agrees, eyeing him with bemusement.

“Alright, what is it?” Damen questions, as they walk through the park.

Laurent shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says. “You’re just very… optimistic.”

“We caught a major player in this case.”

“Maybe,” Laurent hedges.

“You said yourself that Guion has been involved in the Regent’s shady business dealings for over a decade,” Damen points out. “How is this not a win?”

Laurent shoves his hands into his pockets, not meeting Damen’s eyes. “It was too easy,” he says.

“It’s been months in the making,” Damen says. “Getting this arrest involved putting you on work release, sending you undercover, and months of research.”

“It was too easy,” Laurent insists. “My uncle always has a backup plan.”

“You’re being paranoid,” Damen tells him. They’re at the edge of the park now, and there are several food trucks parked along the street. “Hey, how about tacos?”

Laurent makes a face. “You really just eat junk all the time, don’t you?”

“You can make salads for dinner,” Damen offers.

“Get me something vegetarian,” Laurent says. “I’ll find a place to sit.” He turns away, heading down the street in search of an empty park bench.

When Damen returns with the tacos, Laurent is nowhere to be seen. He turns in a circle, eyes scanning the crowd for his familiar flash of blonde hair, but there’s nothing. With a frown, Damen heads in the direction Laurent had been looking, to see if he’d wandered that way. The crowd is thinner here, but there’s no sign of Laurent.

Damen’s about to turn back and try calling Laurent’s new burner phone when the door of a limo parked on the curb swings open, and there’s a flash of blonde hair from inside. He drops the tacos to the ground and reaches for his gun, only to have one pointed at him by someone inside the car.

“Toss your gun on the ground, Agent,” the man pointing a gun at him says.

Damen doesn’t even have his hand on his firearm yet, but he hesitates, not complying. The man turns, pointing the gun inside the limo. “Or I can shoot Laurent here.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Laurent calls. The man holding the gun turns turns away from Damen for a moment, long enough for Damen to draw his own gun and raise it. Laurent’s yell is followed by a grunt of pain.

Damen tosses his gun onto the ground.

“Smart man,” the man says. It might be Govart, Damen thinks. He matches the description – big and burly, with a nose that’s been broken at least twice and healed wrong. Maybe-Govart motions with his gun. “Get inside then.”

Damen slides into the backseat of the limo, across from Maybe-Govart and next to Laurent. “What’s this about?” he asks. Laurent looks unhurt, but he’s rubbing at his right shoulder as if it pains him. “Are you alright?”

Laurent nods, dropping his hand away from his shoulder.

The opaque window blocking the backseat from the front slides down, and a man with a trim, brown bread and blue eyes twists around in the passenger seat to look at them.

“Hello, Laurent.”

“Uncle,” Laurent says.

Damen stares at Laurent-Martin de Vere and feels his stomach clench. He looks the same now as he did in that photo from a decade ago. Maybe a few more wrinkles around the eyes. The patronizing look he gives Laurent feels familiar even thought Damen has never seen it before.

“It’s been a while,” de Vere says.

“Ten years, give or take,” Laurent says.

“You’ve been quite hard to find.”

“Really?” Laurent says. “I’ve been in the same place for most of it. I thought you knew.”

“That you were in prison? I had heard about that. Really, Laurent. Prison?” De Vere shakes his head, the image of a disappointed parent. “I still can’t believe you’d choose a live of crime over coming home.”

“Because everything you do is so above reproach, Uncle?”

Definitely-Govart motions threateningly with the gun, and Laurent raises his hands in surrender. “What do you want?” he asks.

“You’ve made quite the nuisance of yourself,” de Vere says. “After I explicitly told you not to. Honestly, I thought you knew better than to mess with certain things.”

“Sorry,” Laurent says, not sounding sorry at all.

“Have your agent friend there give you the key to that tracking anklet you’re wearing,” de Vere says.

Laurent’s eyes dart over to Damen, but he doesn’t ask for the key.

“Hurry up,” de Vere says. “Give him the key, Agent Akielon. Or take it off him yourself if you’d rather; I really don’t care.”

“Or what?” Damen asks.

“Or Govart here can try shooting it off. It’s not bulletproof, is it? I know his leg isn’t.”

Damen reaches into his pocket for his keys, and hands the whole ring over to Laurent. The small key to the anklet sits next to his house key.

“Good. Now Laurent, take off your anklet. We don’t need the FBI tracking where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?” Laurent asks, even as he leans down to pull his pant leg up and insert the key. The lights on his anklet flash red once before going dark. He sets it down on the seat next to him and passes the keys back to Damen.

“You’ll see soon enough. Drink up,” de Vere tells him. Govart uses the hand not holding the gun to offer Laurent a glass of what looks like whiskey. There’s another identical glass sitting on a tray next to Govart.

Laurent sneers at it. “No.”

“If you don’t want to drink it, then Govart can use other, less pleasant, means of knocking you out,” de Vere says. He nods to the glasses. “You too, Agent Akielon. You’ve become _quite_ the thorn in my side, no thanks to my nephew’s influence.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Damen says. “Unless you want to come down to the office for questioning. I’ve got a nice cell we could hang out in.”

“He’s funny.” De Vere grins. “You didn’t say he was funny, Laurent.”

“I didn’t tell you anything about him,” Laurent mutters.

Govart shoves the glass towards Laurent again, and this time Laurent takes it, though he still doesn’t drink.

De Vere rolls his eyes. “Honestly, Laurent. It’s nothing you haven’t had before.”

Laurent glares at him, then knocks back the drink in one go like a shot. Damen stares at him, shocked that he’d given in that easily.

Govart holds out the other glass to Damen.

“Unless you’d like a knock on the head, Agent,” de Vere says.

Laurent, eyes already looking looking a bit too dilated, says, “Just drink it, Damen.”

Damen does.


	11. Chapter 10

Damen wakes up somewhere else. He’s on the floor, limbs sprawled uncomfortably, and every muscle aches. But it all pales in comparison to the throbbing behind his eyes. He wants to move, but training kicks in and he stays still, trying to evaluate what he can without moving or letting on that he’s awake. The ground is carpeted, and the room isn’t too cold or hot. There are some distant noises but the only thing nearby is the sound of someone else breathing steadily, as if asleep. Laurent?

There are footsteps, but far away, as if through a door. It feels like they’re alone, so Damen opens his eyes, blinking against the harsh light and stifling a groan of pain as the throbbing in his head increases. He’s on the floor next to a bed, and there’s a thin, pale wrist hanging off the mattress above him.

_Laurent_.

Damen pushes himself up to his knees, crawling towards the bed. Laurent is lying on his back, still unconscious. Damen tries to remember what had happened after he’d downed the drugged alcohol in the limo. Laurent had succumbed first, slumping to the side in a sudden movement like a doll, falling unconscious all at once. Damen had felt like it hit more gradually. First his sense of touch, the glass falling from numb fingers, and then his vision, blurring before fading entirely, and finally sound. He’d heard the limo start up, merging into traffic, and then nothing.

They’re in what looks like a hotel room; a relatively nice one. The wallpaper is atrocious.

Damen leans over the bed, shaking Laurent’s shoulder. “Wake up,” he hisses.

Laurent’s whole body shakes with the movement, but his eyelids don’t twitch. At least he’s breathing, Damen thinks. Slow and steadily, as if he’s only asleep. It had looked like the same amount in each glass, but Laurent is quite a bit smaller than Damen, so maybe it’s hit him harder.

Damen turns to survey the room, ignoring his headache, and starts searching for a way out. He’s hesitant to test the door, in case someone is stationed on the other side and would be alerted by it. There’s a nice bathroom, complete with clean linens and single use soaps and shampoos. The water is running so he fills a glass and sips at that as he makes the rest of his circuit. The windows are nailed shut, and look directly at a brick wall that’s only a few feet away. Damen tries to look down. They’re fairly high up, but he can’t tell exactly how many floors. He could break the glass, potentially, but there’s no fire escape on any of them and it’s too far to jump.

There’s a mini-fridge that’s fully stocked with tiny bottles of alcohol, as well as bottled water and juice. Damen checks the seals, but they’re unbroken. There’s a basket with bags of chips and candy bars, also unopened. He wonders if he could order room service or pay per view.

This is a weird kidnapping.

There’s a soft noise from the bed, and Damen turns to find Laurent waking up, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Damen?”

“Hey,” Damen says. “How’s your head?”

Laurent looks completely confused. He glances around the room, but doesn’t seem to really take it in. Damen goes over to sit on the edge of the bed, taking his arm to pull him upright.

“Here,” he says, handing Laurent the glass of water. “Drink some water. You’ll feel better.”

“You came with me,” Laurent says. Rather than reaching for the water, he pitches forward, forehead coming to rest against Damen’s shoulder. “I didn’t think you would be here.”

“I got in the car, didn’t I?” Damen says. It had been a stupid thing to do, all things considered, but Damen is used to making stupid decisions where Laurent is concerned at this point.

One of Laurent’s arms comes up, hooking around Damen’s neck. Damen sets the glass of water down on the nightstand, because holding it and having Laurent draped over the top of him is too much to deal with at once. “But now my uncle has you here too,” Laurent mumbles, voice muffled against Damen’s neck. “He won’t let us go.”

“I’m going to get us out of here,” Damen says.

Laurent pulls back a bit, but his face is still very close to Damen’s. As close as when he’d pulled Damen in for that kiss. He looks at Damen very solemnly, eyes darting over Damen’s face as if studying it, before locking on his eyes. Damen feels like he’s going to break something if he looks away.

“You could do it,” Laurent says, and he sounds as if he truly believes it. “You’re the only one that can. No one else has ever– I tried. I tried so hard, I really did.”

“I know you did,” Damen says, though he’s not sure exactly what Laurent’s talking about.

Laurent nods a little. “But you’re just so _good_.” His fingers tighten against Damen’s neck. “That’s why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you’re the only one I trust,” Laurent says.

Damen’s heart is doing something funny in his chest. Laurent leans his head back against Damen’s shoulder, resting there again. He feels like he should say something, acknowledge how important it is to him that Laurent trusts him, that he won’t let him down. Damen _is_ going to get them out of this. He’s going to get Laurent out of this, and away from his uncle, and slapping a set of cuffs on Laurent-Martin de Vere is going to feel more satisfying than arresting a perp ever has before. But he isn’t sure how to say all of that, so he just brings his own arm up, circling Laurent’s back and pulling him closer.

They sit like that for a few minutes that feel like longer, until Damen’s arm is going numb and he says, “You should really drink some water, Laurent. It will help your headache.”

Laurent mumbles something.

Damen giggles his shoulder, and Laurent sits back enough that Damen can hand him the glass of water. Laurent takes it this time, looking more coherent than he did a few minutes ago.

Laurent frowns, looking around. “Are we at Acquitart?”

“Where?”

Laurent climbs off the bed, setting the empty glass down, and heads towards the desk. He flips through the folders there. “We are,” he says. “I can’t believe he’s still using this place.” He holds up a little pad of paper with a letterhead that has an embossed A on it. Damen squints, but can’t make out the name of the hotel from here. He’ll take Laurent’s word for it.

“You’ve been here before?” he asks.

“My uncle used to use this hotel for his _parties_ ,” Laurent says, spitting out the last word like it’s a curse. “I didn’t realize he still was. I thought he’d stopped years ago. Or else I would have told you to look into it.”

“Maybe he just uses it for kidnappings now,” Damen says, not wanting to think about what kind of parties Laurent might be referring to.

Laurent turns back to the desk. “Maybe.”

They’re left alone in the room for a long time. Long enough that Laurent gets bored and goes looking for something to do, finding a set of cards in one of the desk drawers.

“I’m not playing cards with you,” Damen says. “You’ll cheat.”

“Only a little,” Laurent says.

Damen sighs, and Laurent shuffles and deals.

They’re in the middle of a game of gin rummy when the doorknob rattles with the sound of a key being inserted. Damen’s on his feet, ready to fight whoever’s coming inside. Laurent doesn’t move, remaining cross-legged on the bed, cards still in hand.

Nicaise Perdue enters the room, letting the door swing shut again behind him. He eyes Damen with a sneer, then looks at Laurent.

“Deal you in?” Laurent offers.

“You’re sitting in here _playing cards_?” Nicaise says.

Laurent shrugs. “It was that or read the Bible.”

“He is _so_ pissed at you,” Nicaise says.

Another shrug from Laurent. “Wouldn’t be the first time. We were playing rummy but with three people we could do spades instead. We just won’t have partners.”

“I’m not going to play cards. Oh my _god_. Did prison make you insane?”

“Probably.”

Nicaise shakes his head. “I’m supposed to take you to him.”

“By yourself?” Damen asks, thinking that Nicaise would be easy to overpower and get away from.

Nicaise sneers at him. “Govart is outside with a gun, so don’t get any ideas.”

“Of course he is,” Laurent mutters.

“I told you he was pissed,” Nicaise says.

Laurent drops his hand of cards finally, busying his hands with gathering up the deck. “Why are you back here, Nicaise? You know you’re too old for him now.”

Damen’s stomach clenches, hearing Laurent talk about de Vere’s pedophilia so casually.

Nicaise crosses his arms over his chest. “He’s given me a _job_. I’m making money now.”

“Not just paying you in jewelry and a roof over your head then?”

“That’s money,” Nicaise argues.

“Not really,” Laurent says. “I mean, you could pawn the jewels. I know you know how to do that, though you should haggle for a better deal. That pawnbroker ripped you off on the earrings.” Nicaise looks about ready to start arguing, but Laurent keeps going before he can. “But you need actual cash to get by. A paycheck to be legit. Not just the pocket change he gives you.” He finishes gathering up the cards, stacking them neatly and returning them to the box. “It’s not a real job, Nicaise. What does he even have you doing? Finding younger boys for him?”

Nicaise’s face is bright red. “No!” he insists.

“ _Spending time_ with his _friends_ who don’t like them that young then?”

Nicaise spins on his heel, stalking back to the door and throwing it open. “Govart!” he barks. “Get in here. They’re not cooperating.”

Govart comes in, hand reaching behind him for the gun in his waistband. Nicaise steps to the side, behind him, smirking back at Laurent.

Laurent raises his hands. “We’re coming,” he says. “Nicaise just needed to ask nicely.”

The hallway seems deserted, and they’re led towards the penthouse suite. Damen eyes the gun in Govart’s hand. He has a good grip on it, and the safety’s off. Trying to get it away from him is likely to end in it going off in someone’s face – Damen’s most likely.

Laurent keeps needling Nicaise in the elevator on the way up.

“I guess I just don’t get the appeal,” Laurent says. “I know my uncle doesn’t pay his whores _that_ well, and the old guys are always gross.”

“How would you know what he pays?” Nicaise asks.

Laurent raises an eyebrow.

Nicaise frowns. “ _You_ just wanted me to stay in that shithole of a group home. I had to share a room. All my clothes were second-hand.”

“You were in school and not forced to fuck old men.”

“No one’s forcing me to do anything,” Nicaise says.

“Whatever you tell yourself,” Laurent mutters.

Nicaise steps back, foot coming down on top of Laurent’s toes. Laurent curses softly, but otherwise doesn’t react. “Oops,” Nicaise says.

Damen leans down, so that he’s closer to Laurent’s ear. “ _Why_ do you like this kid?”

“I’m not a kid,” Nicaise says. “Govart, hit him for me.”

Govart elbows Damen in the ribs, sharply. He grunts, hand coming up to rub at the tender spot. This elevator ride is way too long.

The elevator finally opens directly onto the penthouse suite, and de Vere, sitting behind a large desk as if holding court. He spreads his hands magnanimously as they approach, palms up. “Ah, how nice of you to join me, Nephew, Agent.”

“Well, you asked so nicely,” Damen says.

De Vere’s smile tightens, but it’s the only hint that he’s annoyed.

“What do you want?” Laurent asks.

“Just to chat.” De Vere’s tone implies he only wants a friendly discussion.

Laurent scoffs.

“Have a seat.” De Vere gestures to the chairs in front of his desk. “I want to hear about your little… investigation. It sounds just fascinating. Why, you’ve even talked to Ancel. He’s a soft touch, for a whore.”

Damen follows Laurent’s lead and sits down in one of the chairs, even though it puts his back more firmly to the exit. Govart is standing to one side of de Vere, closer to Laurent, gun still in his hand. Nicaise has settled himself against the opposite wall, arms crossed.

“He gave us your name,” Damen says.

“Laurent could have told you that from the start,” de Vere points out. He tilts his head in Laurent’s direction. “Were you protecting me?”

“Hardly,” Laurent says.

De Vere doesn’t say anything else, and eventually Laurent fills the silence with, “I kept your secrets for my own interests, not to help you any.”

“Yes,” de Vere says. “You could have done a better job keeping them, that’s for sure. How much does he know?” He gestures at Damen with one hand.

“Everything,” Laurent says.

Damen doubts that’s true, really.

De Vere clearly doubts it too, judging by his indulgent smile. “You don’t know everything to tell him, Laurent.”

“I know about the dirty money that you’ve been having Guion funnel through his companies for you,” Laurent says.

“Guion is going to be released when his twenty-four hour hold is up, and then he’s going to take a nice trip to the Caymans and never set foot on American soil again. Or any country with an extradition treaty with America. He’s earned that.”

Laurent raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you were _that_ fond of Aimeric.”

Damen glances at Laurent, wondering who he’s talking about. De Vere is waving a hand though, like it doesn’t matter. “One aspect of my business dealings, my boy,” he says. “I have a much wider portfolio than just Fortaine Limited.”

Laurent’s jaw is tight. “I’m sure you do.”

“My proposition for _you_ ,” de Vere continues, “is that you remain in your current position, as FBI lap dog. Stay on your leash, and I’ll provide you the information to feed them.”

Damen stares at him, incredulous. “You realize I’m right here.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten you, Agent.” De Vere smiles at him. “I have a proposition for you as well. I can always use an inside man who actually has control over things. Laurent here has a role to play, of course, but he’s limited by his circumstance, getting himself arrested.” He tsks, shaking his head. “A shame, I tried to raise him right. But what can you do? You have a son, I’m sure you understand.”

Damen’s hand clenches into a fist at his side, nails digging into his palm. “Don’t talk about my son.”

De Vere watches him closely for a moment, before continuing. “How much does the FBI pay, Agent Akielon? It can’t be that well. Enough to afford a nice apartment and good private school tuition?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I didn’t think so. We can come to an arrangement. You agree to overlook certain things, turn a blind eye, pass on some cases, and I think you’ll find those niceties within your grasp.”

Damen carefully unclenches his fist, smoothing his hand over his thigh. “You want to bribe me?”

“I’d prefer to think of it an ongoing partnership.”

“And if I say no?”

“Well, agreeing to it is the only way you’re getting out of here alive.”

Damen glances over at Govart, who still has the gun in his hand. Govart smirks at him.

“Not a fan of doing your own dirty work?” Laurent asks.

“Not when I can pay someone else to do it,” de Vere says. He gestures to Govart.

Govart steps forward, at the same time that Laurent stands up, stepping into his path. Damen gets to his feet, hand on Laurent’s shoulder to push him aside.

“Get out of the way, Laurent,” de Vere says.

“No,” Laurent says.

De Vere sighs deeply, and Govart’s smirk gets wider and more sinister. “Permission, boss?” he asks.

De Vere waves a hand at him, and Govart reaches for Laurent, grabbing hold of his wrist and dragging him away from Damen. “I’ll deal with you later, princess,” he says.

Laurent stumbles to the side with the force of Govart pulling on him, tripping over the chair he was sitting in, and leaving Damen open. Govart raises the gun again, but his one-handed aim isn’t good, and Damen’s reached forward to pull Laurent away from him. The shot goes wide, lodging in the wall.

“The fuck!” Nicaise shouts.

Laurent looks up from where he’s fallen on the floor, one wrist still held tight by Govart. He reaches up and grabs the arm of the chair above him with his free hand, swinging it forward into Govart’s knees right as he fires again.

There’s a burning pain in Damen’s right arm as the shot hits him in the bicep, but he ignores it in favor of continuing to launch himself toward Govart and the gun. Laurent’s hit to Govart’s knees with the chair sends the man stumbling backwards onto his ass, and Damen follows him, knocking the gun away. It goes skidding across the floor, and Damen raises his uninjured left fist to punch Govart in the face. He keeps punching until Laurent grabs his arm, pulling him pack.

Govart’s nose looks broken, blood pouring down the bottom of his face. He’s down.

Damen looks up. “Where’s the gun?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Laurent says.

Across the room, Nicaise has picked up the gun, and is turning it over in his hands, looking at it carefully.

De Vere, out of his seat now and walking towards Nicaise says, “Give me that.”

Nicaise looks up at him, gun held lax in his hands.

“Nicaise,” Laurent says, still crouched next to Damen.

Nicaise looks over at Laurent.

“You don’t have to give it to him,” Laurent says.

“Yes he does,” de Vere says. “Nicaise, come here.”

“Don’t listen to him, Nicaise.”

Damen watches Nicaise, who looks between Laurent and de Vere like a prey animal, caught between two predators.

“What’s he ever done for you?” Laurent asks. “Raped you and kept you like a pet. He doesn’t _love_ you, Nicaise. He never has. He never will. He just uses people, and when they’re not useful to him anymore he throws them away like the trash he thinks they are. But you’re not trash. You’re _not_. You can be so much more than this.”

It’s a good speech, Damen thinks. He’s just not sure it’s going to work on Nicaise. Not when he’d been out of this life and had gone back to it once already.

“Nicaise,” de Vere says, voice firm. “Give me the gun.”

Nicaise stares down at the gun for a moment that seems to stretch forever, then looks up at de Vere. He raises the gun and levels it at him, finger on the trigger. “No.”

De Vere looks startled for a moment, then amused. He makes a ‘come here’ gesture. “Stop this now and I’ll forget it happened.”

“No,” Nicaise says again.

“Nicaise.”

“I said no,” Nicaise says.

Damen gets to his feet, approaching de Vere from behind cautiously, eyes darting between de Vere and the gun Nicaise is holding. De Vere has his hands at his sides, like he doesn’t think Nicaise is a threat, but he’s still watching him closely.

Nicaise’s gaze flickers from de Vere to Damen, and de Vere follows it, starting to turn, but Damen is faster, reaching out and grabbing the man around the middle, holding him tight in a hold he’d learned back in wrestling in college. “Laurent, get something to tie him up with.”

Damen’s right arm is screaming in pain, too weak to maintain this for more than a few minutes against de Vere’s struggles.

“Let me go,” de Vere yells. “Laurent don’t you dare.”

Laurent disappears further into the suite, and turns back up with a length of rope. Damen is _really_ never going to ask how he knew where to find it. He uses it to tie de Vere’s hands behind his back, and shoves him back down into his big fancy chair. De Vere is still spitting curses at them, so Damen pulls his tie off and shoves it into de Vere’s mouth to gag him.

“Your arm,” Laurent says, eyes locked on Damen’s bicep.

Damen looks down at his arm. There’s a hole in sleeve of his jacket where the bullet had entered, and it’s soaked with blood down to the elbow. He stares at it, vision starting to tunnel in a bit.

“Damen,” Laurent says.

“Yeah?” Damen asks. “I’m okay.”

“You look really pale,” Laurent says.

“I’m gonna sit,” Damen says, proceeding to do so, right there on the floor. Laurent is on his knees next to Damen in a second, pulling off his own jacket and tying it around Damen’s arm. That hurts quite a bit, and Damen winces against the pain.

“You’ll be okay,” Laurent says. “There’s an exit wound. It’s a flesh wound.”

Nicaise approaches them cautiously. “He’s bleeding a lot.”

“That happens when someone gets shot,” Laurent says.

“Govart is starting to get up,” Nicaise points out.

Laurent stands up, holding out his hand to Nicaise. After a moment of hesitation, Niciase hands over the gun. Laurent clicks the safety on, then walks over to Govart and hits him in the head with the butt of the gun. Govart drops back to the floor with a thud.

“He’s not gonna bleed out, is he?” Nicaise asks.

“Govart?” Laurent asks.

“The suit,” Nicaise says.

“It’s a flesh wound; he’ll be fine.” Laurent comes back over to Damen anyway, and rests a hand against his cheek. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Damen says.

“Sure you are,” Laurent says. Then he leans in and presses his lips against Damen’s, just a brief brush of dry lips.

“Really?” Nicaise says. “Now?”

Which is when there’s a commotion near the door next to the elevator they’d come up on, and they turn to see the door to the stairwell opening and Nikandros entering the room, gun out and bulletproof vest on. “FBI! No one move!”

Pallas and Halvik are close on Nikandros’ heels, guns also out. They all stop, taking in the scene before them.

“About time you got here,” Laurent says.

\- - -

Damen misses most of the clean up at the scene, on account of being carted out on a stretcher to an ambulance. He keeps insisting it’s not that bad, but he’s lost a fair amount of blood and Makedon, keeping an eye on things outside, takes one look at him before saying, “Hospital,” in a tone that brooks no arguments.

Before he’s carted off, he finds out from Nikandros that the U.S. Marshals had called Makedon about the unauthorized removal of Laurent’s anklet, which had alerted the FBI team that something was wrong. At first they’d thought Laurent was on the run, but then when they hadn’t been able to get in touch with Damen either they’d been concerned, and then his gun had been recovered in the park. Surveillance footage had Damen getting into the limo, but not where it went after it disappeared into traffic. Their break had come when Pallas had gotten in touch with Lazar, and asked about other locations the Regent used in town. The Aquitart Hotel had been the only one with any recent suspicious activity.

The hospital is boring, and no one is answering Damen’s text messages to tell him what’s going on. The ER doctor gives him some good painkillers, stitches up his arms, and has him fitted with a sling before discharging him. By the time Damen is out, he still hasn’t heard anything from the rest of the team.

Someone in the hospital finds him a set of scrubs to wear, instead of his own bloodstained clothes, so Damen heads straight to the office once he’s discharged. He finds Nicaise sitting at Laurent’s desk, playing with that rubber-band ball. He frowns when he sees Damen. “Oh, you’re alive.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Damen says, gesturing to the sling. “Thanks for the concern.”

Nicaise shrugs. “Laurent was worried about you. I wasn’t.”

“Where is he?”

Nicaise points towards where the interrogation rooms are, resting his chin on his hand and looking bored.

“What are you still doing here?” Damen asks.

“Waiting for a social worker,” Nicaise sighs.

Damen frowns. “It will be alright.”

Nicaise cocks his head, chin still on his hand, and looks up at Damen through his lashes. “Don’t make promises,” he says, voice cold.

Damen frowns, but then someone behind him calls his name and he turns to find Pallas leaving the hallway that leads to the interrogation rooms. He leaves Nicaise alone and heads towards him.

“We didn’t think you’d be back tonight,” Pallas says.

“It’s a flesh wound,” Damen says, echoing Laurent’s assessment from earlier.

Pallas’ lips quick up at that, but he just says, “De Vere lawyered up before we even got him in a squad car.”

“I’m shocked,” Damen says.

“We’ve got enough to hold him for now. Govart is still out cold, so we had to send him to the hospital. How hard did you hit him?”

“That wasn’t–“ Damen thinks better of giving Laurent credit for assaulting someone, even if they were a kidnapper, and says, “Hard enough, I guess. He was a threat.”

“I don’t think anyone’s questioning that,” Pallas says. “Makedon will probably want your statement since you’re here. He’s been talking to Laurent.”

He walks towards one of the one-way mirrors that lets him see into the interrogation room, and the chat Makedon, Nikandros, and Laurent are having looks friendly at least. He knocks on the door, then opens it.

“Akielon,” Makedon says. “Didn’t expect you back tonight.”

“They patched me up and let me go,” Damen says. “Pallas said you needed a statement.”

“It can wait until tomorrow,” Makedon says. “It’s late. Go home and rest.” He turns to Laurent, and actually bestows a smile upon him. “You too, Crawford.” He slaps a friendly hand down on Laurent’s shoulder, hard enough to jar Laurent forward into the table. “You did good work today, kid.”

“Um,” Laurent says. “Thank you. Sir.”

Nikandros exchanges a glance with Damen, eyebrows raised, and Damen hides his grin before either Makedon or Laurent see it.

Makedon leaves, and Damen says, “I can take Laurent home.”

Nikandros frowns. “You can’t drive with one arm.”

Laurent sighs, deeply.

“In a cab, I mean.”

Nikandros is still frowning. “Why can’t he take a cab himself?”

Damen rests a hand on Laurent’s shoulder, ushering him up from his seat. “It’s been a long day. He’s already been kidnapped once. I just want to make sure my CI gets home alright.”

Under his breath, Laurent mutters, “Please stop.”

“We’ll be fine in a cab,” Damen continues, pushing Laurent ahead of him down the hall.

Back in the bullpen, Nicaise’s social worker has finally shown up, and he’s glaring at the woman like she’s the devil incarnate. “I’m not going back to the that group home,” Nicaise is arguing.

Laurent goes over to talk to him, and Damen leaves him to it. It’s another twenty minutes before they get out of the office, after seeing Nicaise off – to an emergency placement with a family, which won’t last more than a day or two, but isn’t the group home he hates so much.

“I could drive,” Laurent offers, as they ride the elevator down.

“You don’t have a license,” Damen says.

“I could drive,” Laurent repeats.

“Do you even know how?”

“I’ve driven before.”

“That wasn’t a yes.”


	12. Chapter 11

The cab ride back is quiet. Damen’s feeling slightly dopey from the painkillers, and finds himself leaning his head back against the seat, turned towards Laurent and watching his profile. It’s late, and the city lights flash over Laurent’s skin in unpredictable patterns.

“You’re staring,” Laurent says, at a stoplight.

“You’re nice to stare at,” Damen says.

Laurent turns to look at him, and Damen’s too loopy to tell what he’s thinking from just the set of his lips. “You kissed me,” he says.

“What?” Laurent asks.

“Earlier,” Damen says. “You kissed me.”

“That was to distract Rueven,” Laurent says.

“No,” Damen says, drawing the word out. “Before, when I was shot. You kissed me.” It had been brief and barely there but it had been a  _ kiss _ and Damen can’t stop thinking about it now. That brush of Laurent’s lips against his. The press of his hand against Damen’s jaw. The heat of him, so close Damen could feel it.

“That wasn’t even a real kiss,” Laurent says.

“Then kiss me for real,” Damen says.

Laurent is watching him, eyes scanning his face, and then they seem to lock on Damen’s lips. Damen licks them.

Laurent leans forward, one hand resting on the seat between their thighs, and presses his lips against Damen’s again. His lips are dry, warm, and for a moment they just rest there, pressed up against Damen’s, then he sighs, lips parting just the tiniest bit, and Damen opens his own lips, tongue darting out to brush against Laurent’s lower lip. 

The taxi jerks into motion, jarring them, and suddenly the kiss is deeper. Laurent’s hand is on Damen’s thigh, for balance, and his mouth opens more under Damen’s lips. Damen wraps his good arm around Laurent’s back, pulling him closer, and sucks Laurent’s lower lip between his teeth. Laurent tastes just a bit like the coffee from the office. The coffee that he always complains about and pours tons of creamer and sugar into before drinking. He makes a soft noise, swaying closer to Damen as they turn a corner.

The taxi jerks to a halt in front of Damen’s building, and Laurent pulls back. In the back of the dim car, his eyes look wide and dark as they meet Damen’s.

The moment breaks when the cabbie asks for the fare, and Laurent leans away from Damen, sliding back into his own seat. Damen fumbles left-handed for his wallet, finding a twenty and handing it to the cabbie.

Damen’s distracted on the way upstairs, following Laurent. Laurent, who has a fantastic ass. Had Damen noticed that before? He’s noticing it now. Maybe it’s because the suits Torveld got for him are tailored perfectly. Maybe it’s because Laurent is just a few steps ahead of Damen on the stairs, which has put his ass at eye-level. Whatever it is, Laurent has an amazing ass, Damen is quite possibly high on these painkillers, and they’ve reached their floor now and Laurent is turning around, looking at Damen.

Laurent gives him a questioning look.

“Right, keys,” Damen says. “I have those.” He pulls the keys out of his pocket, holding them up. The key for Laurent’s anklet is on there as well, but he’s not wearing it right now. It’s still wherever it landed when de Vere tossed it out the window of the limo.

Laurent laughs. “What did they give you at the hospital?”

Nothing strong enough to be causing Damen to act like this much of a fool, unfortunately.

Once they’re inside, Laurent turns to Damen expectantly, but Damen’s not sure what he’s looking for, exactly. He hesitates, taking his time over placing the keys in the little bowl by the door.

Laurent’s still watching him closely.

“So,” Damen says, not meeting his eyes. “We’re both probably pretty tir–“

“You’re really just going to make out with me in the back of a cab like a teenager and that’s it?” Laurent says.

Damen looks at him. Laurent takes a half a step towards him. The air between them feels charged, like if Damen reached out to touch him he’d get a static shock. But it’s just the precipice Damen’s standing on. He can wave off kissing Laurent as a mistake still. Blame it on the long day, on getting shot, on not thinking straight. Touching him now means something different. If Damen touches Laurent now, he can’t take it back. Laurent is still his CI, a ward of the prison system, and if they got caught it would be  _ Damen _ going to prison.

“What do you want?” Damen asks, voice rough.

Laurent leans in, close enough that Damen can feel the heat of him, but not touching. His breath is warm against Damen’s neck as he says, “I want you to take me back your bedroom and open me up, get me good and wet, and fuck me so hard I can’t walk straight tomorrow.”

Damen can’t stand even the scant distance between them. He grabs hold of Laurent’s chin with his good hand, tilting his face up so that he can crash their mouths together. Laurent opens underneath him, the kiss sloppy from the first moment, and the slight press of Laurent’s teeth against his lips only makes it better as Damen pushes him backwards, until Laurent’s back hits the wall next to the door.

Laurent makes a small noise, hands clutching at the back of the scrub shirt Damen’s still wearing. Damen drops his hand, clutching at Laurent’s hip instead – his right arm in the sling is crushed between them. He trails open-mouthed kisses down Laurent’s jaw, until he finds a spot just beneath his ear that makes Laurent let out another breathy sound.

“Up against–” Laurent swallows hard. “Up against the wall is fine too.” One of his hands trails across Damen’s back and up over his shoulder, nails scraping lightly though the thin cotton of Damen’s shirt. His hand comes to rest on Damen’s uninjured bicep, and he squeezes lightly. “You could probably hold me up here, couldn’t you?”

Damen groans, thinking for a brief moment of pinning Laurent against the wall, naked, thighs wrapped around his hips while Damen fucks up into him. “Not after getting shot in the arm,” he tells him. Acrobatic sex is off the table for a while.

Laurent’s other hand rests against Damen’s injured arm, on his shoulder, touch feather light. Then he leans forward, pressing his lips against the bandages. He looks up at Damen through his lashes.

“I don’t think that works on bullet wounds,” Damen says.

“Pity,” Laurent says. “We’ll have to save the wall fucking for after it’s healed. Bed, then?”

Damen thinks about Laurent in his bed. He’s seen Laurent in his bed before, of course, but this is  _ different _ . Everything about tonight is different.

He nods, and lets Laurent take his hand and lead him back towards his own bedroom.

Seeing Laurent in his room isn’t new. But the look on his face as he turns back towards Damen is. This isn’t the careful, guarded way Laurent has been looking at him in the mornings. Laurent’s eyes are heavy with desire, raking over Damen. He takes a step backwards, and another, and while he hasn’t let go of Damen’s hand it’s not that that pulls Damen after him. Damen can’t do anything but follow. 

He follows Laurent across the room follows as Laurent’s legs hit the side of the bed and he sinks to sit on the edge, leans over him as he lays back across the mattress, one hand holding himself up above Laurent as he looks down at him, before leaning down to kiss him again. It’s a softer kiss than they’d shared in the hallway, at first, but then Laurent is sucking Damen’s lip between his teeth, one knee coming up alongside Damen’s hip and his hand tugging insistently  _ up _ at the back of Damen’s shirt, demanding more.

It’s too much for Damen, balancing on just his one good arm, and he falls forward on top of Laurent. 

Laurent lets out of an  _ oof _ of surprise, air knocked out of him, and says, “Is this how you usually do things?”

“Ha,” Damen says, rolling onto his back, taking the pressure off his injured arm. “I’ve just been shot and you’re making fun of me.”

Laurent props himself up on an elbow and looks down at him. “Oh, poor baby. Do you need a nurse?”

“Are you offering? We don’t have an outfit for it.”

Laurent’s face does a funny thing, and Damen grins at him until Laurent finally breaks and swats a hand at Damen’s stomach. Damen catches his hand, holding on to it, and Laurent’s face softens.

“Scoot up here then,” Laurent says. “I suppose I’m going to have to do all the work.”

Damen maneuvers himself until he’s propped against the pillows, and Laurent follows him, crawling across the bed on his knees. Which is… a really nice visual that Damen wants to remember for a long time. Laurent straddles his thighs, slacks straining, and starts tugging at Damen’s shirt again.

They encounter problem when it comes to the sling, and have to remove it to get the shirt off, then they spend a minute debating whether Damen should keep it on or not.

“I can leave it off,” Damen says.

Laurent shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Because then you’ll try to use your arm.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes you will. You just raised it then. Put the sling back on.”

Laurent wins the sling argument, but at least Damen’s shirt is off now, and his pants and boxers are easier to deal with.

“I promise I’m usually much more actively involved in this,” Damen says, as Laurent tosses Damen’s boxers across the room.

“Hmm,” Laurent says, focus seemingly intent on Damen’s cock now that he’s got him naked finally.

“Really,” Damen says, as Laurent takes hold of his cock in hand, fingers circling the base loosely. He tips his head back and swallows hard before continuing, “It’s just because I can’t use one arm, and that’s made things kind of difficult. I’d normally have you on your back and undressed by now and…”

Laurent’s hand moves up his shaft, fist tightening. His thumb moves, rubbing across the head of Damen’s cock. “And?” he asks, tone curious.

“And, uh…”

Laurent’s thumb pushes a bit harder, right against the slit, and Damen forgets trying to talk at all and just tips his head back, eyes closed, groaning.

When Laurent moved his hand hand back down and Damen looks back at him, he looks rather pleased with himself.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Damen says, good hand reaching for Laurent’s collar and fumbling at the buttons there. Laurent has lost his tie and jacket at some point in the evening, but he’s still buttoned up. 

Damen’s left hand makes a mess of trying to undo the first one, until Laurent says, “Here,” and reaches up to do it himself. He makes quick work of his shirt, followed by the tank top under it – they both land somewhere off to the side, and then Damen can’t keep from touching the expanse of pale skin bared before him, fingertips tripping along the edge of Laurent’s ribs. His thumb rubs over his nipple, and Laurent arches a bit under him.

Damen leans in, kissing along Laurent’s jaw until his mouth reaches his ear. His hand slips around his back, trailing down Laurent’s spine to drip beneath the waistband of his pants. His slacks are too tight for Damen to get his hand in any further. “You’re still wearing too many clothes,” Damen says.

Laurent rises onto his knees, one hand braced on Damen’s shoulder, while he works his belt and fly open, and Damen uses the added space to work his hand further down Laurent’s pants, palming his ass. Laurent wears those tight, fancy briefs – Damen had noticed them the other day, another part of the expensive wardrobe from Torveld – and Damen can feel his ass flex under his hand. He squeezes, and Laurent arches his back, like a cat.

He works his hand under the band of Laurent’s underwear, and it feels illicit like this. The fabric tight across the back of his hand, Laurent’s skin smooth and hot under his palm. His fingers trace along the edge of Laurent’s cheek, then up his crack until his fingertip brushes over his hole. Laurent shifts a bit, on his knees still, legs spreading wider.

Damen rubs his finger over Laurent’s hole again. Laurent’s head tips forward, forehead resting against his shoulder and breath warm against Damen’s shoulder. “Do you still want…?” Damen asks.

“Yes,” Laurent says. He lifts his heads, and sits back. Damen pulls his hand away. Laurent shimmies out of his pants and underwear, kicking them off the side of the bed before returning to Damen. “You do have lube, right?”

Damen nods towards the nightstand. “Top drawer.”

Laurent finds the lube, and a condom as well, and start to squirt it over his own hand when Damen says, “Let me.”

They wind up back in that same position, Laurent on his knees over Damen’s lap, while Damen reaches around with slick fingers this time and works one more insistently against Laurent’s hole. Laurent’s breath is warm against Damen’s neck. He presses an an open-mouthed kiss against Damen’s collarbone that turns into an indrawn breath as Damen’s finger enters him.

Damen presses a kiss against his temple, and Laurent turns away from him a bit. “Another,” he says.

Damen’s barely worked the first finger in, and asks, “Already?”

“Yes,” Laurent says. “I’m not a virgin. C’mon.”

Damen frowns, which is enough to prompt Laurent to say, “Didn’t I tell you I wanted you to leave me gaping?”

Damen’s brain short circuits because no, no Laurent had  _ not _ said that. But now that he has… Damen presses a second finger alongside the first, watching Laurent’s face closely for any discomfort. There’s a bit of a crease on his forehead, but it relaxes away quickly.

It takes a bit longer to add a third finger, but Damen’s barely gotten one in before Laurent says, “Okay,” and shoos Damen away from him. Like, an actual shooing motion. Damen stares at him.

“I want you inside me,” Laurent says, eyes locked on Damen’s.

That’s hard to argue with, but Damen still finds himself asking, “Really?”

“Well, I didn’t just take three fingers up the ass for nothing,” Laurent says. “Here.” He nudges Damen, until he’s leaned back at just the angle Laurent wants him. And Damen’s hard, has been hard for a very long time now. It’d be difficult not to be with Laurent, naked, above him. But at the brush of Laurent’s thigh against his cock it twitches with renewed interest, and Damen has to take a deep breath to steady himself.

Laurent takes hold of Damen’s cock like he did earlier, fingers loose around the base. He somehow manages to make putting on a condom hot, and then he’s kneeling over Damen’s lap, and guiding Damen’s cock behind him. The head of Damen’s cock brushes over his hole once, twice, before Laurent firms up his grip and then is sinking down onto him, tight heat enveloping Damen’s cock.

He groans, head thrown back. He means to make sure Laurent was alright, but by the time he checks Laurent has seated himself fully onto Damen’s cock, knees on either side on Damen’s thighs, one hand pressed against Damen’s chest for balance.

His hips work in slow rolls, and each one seems to squeeze Damen’s cock. Damen isn’t sure what to do. One hand is pinned by the sling but what should he do with the other one? It falls to Laurent’s hip, holding on, probably too tightly. Laurent rolls his hips again and Damen groans, fingers digging into the flesh of Laurent’s ass.

“Like that?” Laurent asks.

“You’re, uh… Yes,” Damen manages. Laurent rocks his hips again.

Damen feels like he’s just along for the ride as Laurent works himself over Damen’s lap. His hips are moving a rhythm Damen can’t keep up with. When he tries it just throws Laurent off, and braces his hands on Damen’s shoulders. The surprise on his face is worth the attempt though, because otherwise Laurent looks too serious. Like he has a specific idea of how this should go that he’s working toward. Damen enjoys throwing it off, even a tiny amount. It also helps that it feels fucking amazing, because the tiny break in rhythm makes Laurent clench down on him.

Laurent’s ass around Damen’s cock is everything Damen thought it would be and more. The tight, slick heat, surrounding him but also that it’s  _ Laurent _ who’s here with him.  _ Laurent _ who’s letting him lean in for a sloppy kiss, both of them breathing too hard for any finesse. That  _ Laurent’s _ beathy gasp is caused by Damen jerking his hips up.

“I can’t–” Laurent breaks off, breath shuddering out against Damen’s cheek.

If Laurent’s not coming now, then Damen is. His fingers dig into Laurent’s hip tightly as he spills inside him, eyes closed and had tipped back. Laurent presses a kiss against his throat, and rocks his hips down again.

“Oh god,” Damen groans.

Laurent has stilled when he comes back down his orgasm, but he’s still hard, and Damen says, “Come here,” scooting down the bed. His softening cock slips from Laurent, and he keeps going until he’s not sitting up as far, and then uses his hand on Laurent’s ass to guide guide him forward.

“What are you…?”

“You’re too far away for me to suck you off,” Damen says.

Laurent stares down at him. “You want to suck my cock?”

“Very much so,” Damen tells him. “Now come here.”

Laurent stares at him for a moment longer, but Damen’s hand on his hip is apparently enough encouragement. He moves forward on his knees until he’s straddling Damen’s shoulders.

Damen reaches for his cock, taking hold of the base and stroking a few times. Laurent takes a breath in through his teeth. Damen guides his cock towards his mouth, tongue licking over the head.

The position is awkward, at least until Laurent figures out to take hold of the headboard and lean forward a bit, then it works perfectly. Damen takes Laurent’s cock in as far as he can, sucking hard, using his hand to stroke what he can’t fit in his mouth, then guides him back to swirl his tongue around the head. Laurent makes a small, abortive thrust, which, honestly, it’s kind of hot that he’s lost control enough to do it. Damen opens his mouth wider.

Laurent pulls back. “Sorry.”

“If I want you to stop I’ll let you know,” Damen says, Laurent’s cock at his lips. “Come on.” He opens his mouth wide again, trying to look encouraging.

Laurent thrust his hips forward. Damen takes his cock as far as he can, holds it, then sucks hard as he pulls back. He does this a few more times, but it’s not until he reaches around, fingers dipping back into Laurent’s still slick and open hole that Laurent shudders and comes down his throat.

Damen swallows as much as he can, and when Laurent is done he pulls away and collapses next to Damen on the bed.

Damen gets rid of the condom, and then collapses next to him. They lay like that, exhausted and sated, for an endless number of minutes. Damen’s nearly drifted off to sleep when he feels Laurent stir.

Laurent is getting up. Damen reaches for him. “No, stay.”

“I’m just cleaning up,” Laurent says, stumbling a bit as he stands up. He makes his way across the room to the ensuite bathroom, and Damen closes his eyes as he listens to Laurent run the water in the sink. He opens them again as the mattress dips, and Laurent offers him a damp washcloth.

It’s a sweet gesture. Laurent is like that sometimes, surprisingly thoughtful.

Damen tosses the washcloth to the side when he’s done, and then tugs on Laurent’s hand, trying to pull him back into bed. “Come back to bed.”

Laurent hesitates, but then lays down, finally curling up next to Damen, head pillowed on his chest. Damen closes his eyes, feeling the long day start to catch up with him again and drag him towards sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Laurent says.

“Hmm?” Damen asks, hand coming up to brush over Laurent’s hair.

Laurent’s hand lifts, tracing over the edge of the bandages on Damen’s arm. “You could have been killed.”

Damen shrugs the shoulder that Laurent’s lying on, jarring him a bit. “I’m fine.”

“But what if–“

“Stop,” he says. “First rule of law enforcement, don’t dwell on the things that didn’t go wrong on an op. That’s what the meeting with the brass in the morning is for. They’ll go over it with a fine-toothed comb. There’s no reason for us to beat ourselves up over it. We did the best with what we knew at the time.”

Laurent tips his head, looking up, and if Damen dips his chin he can just meet his eyes. “You got shot though.”

“Everyone got out okay,” Damen says. “That’s what matters. You did brilliantly.”

Laurent looks away again, face turning against Damen’s chest.

“I mean it,” Damen says. “You stayed calm. You convinced Nicaise to change sides. You were amazing.” He presses a kiss against Laurent’s hair.

Laurent’s quiet for a minute, then finally says, “We should sleep.”

Damen brushes his hand over Laurent’s hair, down his shoulder, back up again. Keeps up the rhythm as he closes his eyes and listens to Laurent’s soft breathing. He can feel it more than hear it, pressed as close together as they are. It’s comforting, having Laurent this close. It feels right.


	13. Epilogue

_ Eight months later… _

“Come on, kiddo, we’re gonna be late.” Damen holds Theo’s coat out, shaking it to try and emphasize that it’s time to go now. 

Jokaste frowns at him. “What’s the rush?”

“The trial ended today and the jury’s already been deliberating since ten,” Damen tells her. “The prosecutor was expecting a fast verdict.”

Theo finally comes over and shrugs into his coat, turning around so Damen can zip it up for him. Jokaste tosses a pair of tennis shoes at them, and Damen kneels down to put those on him as well.

“I can tie them,” Theo insists.

“Okay,” Damen says, leaving him to it, and taking the backpack Jokaste hands him.

“Is this the de Vere case?” she asks.

He nods.

“They were talking about that on the news.”

“You watch the news?”

Jokaste shoots him a look, and Damen raises the hand that’s not holding Theo’s backpack placatingly.

“They couldn’t discuss some of the testimony because it involved minors,” she says.

Damen makes an agreeable noise, checking Theo’s progress on his laces. It’s slow going.

“What did he do anyway?” Jokaste asks. “They were talking about indicting the House Minority Leader for being involved in it.”

“He was laundering money, and taking bribes and blackmailing politicians to vote the way he wanted them too.”

“Why are they trying him in New York then?”

“This is only the first trial,” Damen says, not quite answering the question. “He’s got one in Washington next for the blackmail and conspiracy charges.”

She frowns. “They said they were trying him for child trafficking too.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think you worked on those kind of cases.”

“I don’t, usually.”

Her frown is still firmly in place, arms crossed. “Well, I hope you get the bastard then.”

“What’s a bastard?” Theo asks, hopping up from the floor.

Jokaste sighs. “Daddy will explain it to you later,” she says, placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him towards Damen.

Damen glares at her over Theo’s head as he helps him put his backpack on. “Much later,” he says. Backpack on, he gives Theo a nudge towards the door. “Okay, come on. We’re meeting Laurent.”

“Really?” Theo asks, face lighting up. Laurent is one of his favorite people. “Are we having dinner with him?”

“Sure,” Damen says.

Theo turns back to give Jokaste a hug, then shouts, “Bye Mommy!” as he runs for the door, Damen chasing after him.

They make it to the courthouse in time to catch the reporters mobbing the prosecutor as he stands on the steps outside.

“I hope that’s a good sign,” Damen mutters, taking Theo’s hand and leading him around the crowd.

“Where’s Laurent?” Theo asks.

“I’m not sure,” Damen says, eyes scanning over the top of the crowd for that familiar flash of Laurent’s blond hair. “Come on, we’ll wait over here and he can find us when he comes out. How was school?”

Theo’s still babbling about kindergarten a few minutes later when Damen finally spots Laurent at the courthouse doors. He waves, trying to catch his attention.

Laurent’s stopped at the top of the steps, staring at the circus still happening further down, expression strangely unguarded and looking overwhelmed, but then he catches sight of Damen and veers his direction.

“Hey,” Damen says as he approaches. “How did it–” He cuts off, startled, when Laurent steps straight into his chest, arms snaking around Damen’s waist and clutching at him tightly.

Damen’s arms circle him on autopilot, coming to rest against Laurent’s back, one palm rubbing against his shoulders soothingly. “Hey, it’s alright,” he murmurs. Laurent has his face pressed against Damen’s neck, and it’s honestly worrying Damen how he’s not making a sound. It barely feels like he’s breathing. “Whatever happened it’s okay.”

It’s an empty platitude and he knows it. If Laurent-Martin de Vere went free after all that, and on the child trafficking, abuse, and pornography possession charges of all things, then sure, they might still get him on the other charges in D.C., but it won’t mean the same thing. And several of those charges hinge on these sticking.

“He was found guilty on all charges,” Laurent says, voice muffled against Damen’s collar.

Damen’s arms squeeze around him. “That’s good. That’s… That’s great.” He stops. Laurent still hasn’t moved. “This is a good thing, right?”

Theo tugs on the bottom of Damen’s coat. “What’s wrong with Laurent?”

“He’s just had a really long day,” Damen says. Over Laurent’s head, he can see Nicaise emerging from the courthouse, flanked by his lawyer and social worker. “Nicaise is here,” he tells Laurent.

Laurent pulls away from him, taking a step back until Damen lets him go. He runs his hands through his hair, then smooths down his coat as if it were wrinkled. Nicaise has clearly spotted them and is walking over, leaving the others behind.

Laurent seems to drag a smile up from somewhere for Nicaise, and says, “You did really well.”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “His lawyer was an asshole.”

“Don’t curse in front of Theo,” Laurent says.

Nicaise glances down at Theo, lips pressed together. “Sorry,” he says.

“I know what an asshole is,” Theo says.

They both look at Damen, who says, defensively, “He doesn’t hear it from me.”

There’s a sudden uproar from the crowd of reporters as de Vere’s lawyer appears. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Damen suggests. “Who’s hungry?” He doubts Laurent will do more than pick at a meal right now, to be honest, but he can’t think of anything better to suggest.

“Me!” Theo says.

Laurent looks to Nicaise, and asks, “Come with us?”

Nicaise darts a glance at Damen. “Depends what you’re having.”

“Pizza, knowing these two,” Laurent says.

“Can we have pepperoni?” Theo asks. He reaches for Laurent’s hand, swinging it between them.

“Will you eat some of the salad this time?” Laurent asks, leading him down the courthouse steps.

Theo makes a face. “Do I have to?”

“It’s good for you.”

“I’m with the kid,” Nicaise says, following. “Let’s go eat greasy shit. Preferably at a bar that will accept my fake. I need a drink after today.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Damen says.

Nicaise sighs. “I still can’t believe you’re dating a cop,” he tells Laurent.

“We’re not dating,” Laurent insists.

“Whatever you call this super domestic thing you’re doing then.”

“I call it none of your business. And where did you get a fake? I told Jord not to give you one.”

Damen trails after them, hands shoved into his pockets. Spending his evenings with his son and Laurent and Laurent’s bratty teenage friend aren’t how he ever expected things to go when he agreed to let Laurent out of prison on work-release months ago, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! I couldn't have done this without a few people, namely Stillwaterseas, who held my hand throughout and beta read and helped me get unstuck a few times. And the folks on discord who listened to me whine about it. The mods for running the show. And my lovely artists. (Seriously if you haven't checked out the art yet GO! It's on chapters 1 and 9 and it's _amazing_. I'm so blessed.)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented on the daily chapters!

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](https://niniblack.tumblr.com/) or twitter [@niniblack_](https://twitter.com/niniblack_) and talk about these stupid princes with me.


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